


"Wings of Liberty" - A Tale of the Undiscovered Frontier

by ComradeTortoise, stgjr



Series: Tales of the Undiscovered Frontier [2]
Category: Babylon 5, Original Work, The Saga of the Skolian Empire - Catherine Asaro
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Multiple Crossovers, Multiverse, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23706928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComradeTortoise/pseuds/ComradeTortoise, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stgjr/pseuds/stgjr
Summary: Nisa Tari of Toutaine, a metaphysically-gifted psion from the Enclave on Solaris, arrives at Teyan Station to seek out a prospective student in the children of the Psi Corps.
Series: Tales of the Undiscovered Frontier [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1227554
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4
Collections: Undiscovered Frontier - A Multiverse Crossover Space Opera





	1. Chapter 1

**A Tale of the Undiscovered Frontier**   
_**"Wings of Liberty"** _

  
  
The desert spread out in the dream. Stark. Unforgiving. Only the hardy natives of the planet - if they were natives - survived here, traveling from oasis to oasis as the seasons demanded.  
  
The dreamer watched the desert's harshness recede ever so slightly. A band of blue cut through the terrain, forming river banks with soil suitable for growing food and sustaining life. The plains were marked with the farms, supported by the channels and canals drawn from the river. The villages and towns dotted these lands, the signs of settlements dating back three thousand years.  
  
The names came easily to the dreamer. The Jeziri Plains. The Samir River. The Yildiz. Toutaine.  
  
The dream narrowed down upon the town of al-Lahir, one of many that bordered the Samir. The great town square, festooned with ribbons of green and blue and red, the colors of the spring festivals when the locals began planting. The market baskets full of the fish drawn from the river, dates and sprigs and oranges and other treats grown from the riverbank orchards.  
  
A raised platform held the attention of the robed and turbaned folk attending. On it, a young man and a young woman, their dark bronze skin glinting in the light, danced in flowing garbs of white and green. They were husband and wife, humble farmers, but more than that, they were blade-dancers. Sleek, curved blades, one held in each hand, swished through the air, as if the two were having a duel, but a duel with no bloodshed in mind, indeed, no blood being visible at all. Each moved in rhythm with the other, as if their minds were one. The dreamer watched the crowd cheer their skill.  
  
The dance stopped. They stepped aside, and in their place came a child, a girl of six summers clad in the same wear, two small curved knives in hand. The child danced a simpler routine. She didn't have the experience of her parents, but she showed promise, and smiled at her parent's pleasure in her respect for their craft. The crowd rewarded her nascent skill with supportive applause.  
  
The dreamer watched the child dance, and as she danced, the summers passed. She grew into herself, becoming a fine young woman, a flower of the Jeziri like her mother, her skill with the dancing blades increasing with each new summer added to her life. The blades grew longer, going from knives to daggers. Adulthood beckoned, and with it came the swords her parents danced with, one from each, symbols of their love.  
  
" _All passengers, docking with Teyan Station is now complete_. _Prepare to disembark._ "  
  
The words, spoken in a plain English, jolted the dreamer from the dream. She opened her eyes and glanced about. To either side of her the seats of the liner were emptying. With the repeat of the announcement understanding shined through the fog of sleep still settled on her senses. She stood, collected her bags from overhead, and joined the departure line.  
  
In the line she sensed the quiet impatience of the passengers. Many had business to attend to, or were meant to embark on other vessels to reach an ultimate destination. They all wished to be done with the process of boarding the station. She sympathized, as she had her own pressing business to see to.  
  
The line moved forward, bit by bit, and soon she came face to face with the station security officer. The woman was a Dorei, of the N2S7 universe, one of the founding species and peoples of the United Alliance of Systems. Her skin was a light blue, the color of a garden world's sky, with purple spots running in a pattern down both sides of her face. Dark teal hair was pulled back into a pony-tail. Her uniform was emerald green with purple trim. "Welcome to Teyan Station, miss," she said in a melodic accent, accepting the holographic display passport. "Nisa Tari?"  
  
"Yes," the dreamer answered.  
  
"You're from S0T5? Solaris? Not every day we get a Solarian."  
  
"I have dwelled there for several years, but it is not my homeworld," she corrected. As she spoke she noted the curiosity in the Dorei woman's mind. Her garb was not regular for many Humans present, it was true. She wore a long-sleeved blouse of dark blue color with a barnous of emerald green clasped at her neck. A green headscarf also covered the top of her head, holding her dark hair down. Sensing the thought forming in the alien's mind, she said, "I am a Yildiz of Toutaine. This is how my people dress."  
  
The Dorei woman nodded. "I understand." She tapped something on her controls. "Your scan is clear. Again, welcome to Teyan Station, your checked baggage is being cleared just ahead."  
  
"Thank you. May the All-Highest be with you."  
  
"May the Deity be with you as well," the woman answered, understanding Nisa's context. She gestured Nisa through the checkpoint and into the arrival terminal.  
  
The other passengers from the liner were still dispersing. A few were heading laterally toward other terminals, others were walking towards the core of the station. After collecting the checked baggage she'd been required to stow away on the liner, Nisa followed them and entered one of the four "spokes" that linked the torus to the cylindrical core of the station.  
  
This section of the station wasn't just a pathway, it was a market, a three level high assortment of shops, eateries, and other establishments catering to the station's visitors and residents. Nisa milled through the collection of beings, marveling at the assortment of species from across the Multiverse. She considered how blessed she was to be seeing such sights while her mind buzzed with all of the surface thoughts of those around her.  
  
The sights and thoughts and smells of the bustling market made her think of home, with a tinge of melancholy. There were times she missed al-Lahir deeply.  
  
"Hey!"  
  
The call was repeated before she realized the caller was speaking to her. He was Human, a tan-skinned man in a dark blue jacket and pale gray shirt with matching cargo trousers. His dark brown eyes settled on her face, a final confirmation she was the target of his irritation. As he took the final steps toward her she felt his psionic gift, just as he had to be feeling hers.  
  
She didn't have a chance to speak or even project a query into his mind. "I thought I made it clear when we made port," he said. "Everyone's gotta go to the pitch session. It's part of the deal, and they've been holding it up."  
  
"'Pitch session'? 'Deal'?"  
  
He rolled his eyes. "You speak English, and I was projecting it to everyone anyway, so don't play dumb. Whatever you think of the Corps, they're letting us go peacefully as long as we sit and let them make their pitch. I'm sure you don't care about it, and you don't have to. Let them have their word and walk out, that's all you have to do. You don't even have to stay for the Q&A."  
  
His irritation was palpable, and not entirely limited to Nisa. It only fed her own bewilderment. "The Corps? You mean the Psi Corps?"  
  
Now he got sarcastic. "Yes, what other 'Corps' is there to talk about. Of course I mean the Psi Corps, and…" He stopped. Nisa felt him at the periphery of her mind, picking up her thoughts and loose memories she wasn't bothering to shield. "...and I'm making an ass out of myself, aren't I?" He sighed. "You aren't from around here, and you didn't come in on the _Hycantha_."  
  
"No, I was on the _Starlark_ ," Nisa replied, feeling the growing embarrassment of the man. "I am Nisa Tari of Toutaine."  
  
"Oscar Mendoza. I'm a conductor on the Underground Railroad." He smiled with bemusement. "Well, not so underground these days. We're more of an open secret now. And I'm sorry, I'm still getting used to the idea of Human telepaths who _aren't_ from my universe."  
  
Nisa nodded. "I understand. It has taken me time to adjust to the existence of the Multiverse as well."  
  
"Everyone takes some time," Oscar remarked. "Anyway, I'm sorry to bother you. I thought you were a straggler, we get them sometimes. They don't want to give the Corps the time of day. Can't blame 'em, but a deal's a deal, and the Corps is being remarkably good sports about it."  
  
"What are you speaking of? What is this deal?"  
  
Instead of answering verbally, Oscar communicated by telepathic glyph. The raw information was easily digested by Nisa's mind, informing her of what he meant. The Corps allowed "blips", as they were called, to emigrate to the rest of the Multiverse, even if it was a violation of Earth law and against the Corps' creed of telepath unity and family. In exchange, the runaways agreed to give the Corps one last chance to convince them to join and come back. _Why would they do so?  
  
Because EarthGov made a secret deal with the Allied Systems, turning their main trade route from Earth through Teyan into a no-inspection zone for runaways_, Oscar replied with a passive thought. _EarthGov doesn't allow any inspections of ships heading here anymore, at least not for us, and on paper that means the Corps can't either. But there are other parties out there that would take advantage. This deal limits their ability to do that.  
  
You are uncomfortable about this?_  
  
Oscar nodded. His expression became pensive. When he replied, he spoke aloud. "Don't know if I trust the Corps over time. Maybe right now, they don't have a choice. But when they get the opening they need, well, now they know our ships. They have to for this arrangement to work."  
  
Nisa sensed the suspicion in his thoughts and being. Given her own purpose for being here, she needed to know more. "And you believe they would come after you?"  
  
"If they don't see it as threatening telepaths? Sure. They think we should all be wearing the brass pin and the gloves." Oscar scowled. "They treat people like me as if we're misbehaving children because we dare to say 'no' to them. Like our independence ends where Psi Corps and its needs begin." As they walked along he checked his omnitool. "Now I have to go listen to them make their pitch again."  
  
"Again?"  
  
"One of my duties as the Railroad's conductor here on Teyan. I observe to make sure the local Psi Corps Education telepath is behaving. An outside telepath, usually a Gersallian or Betazoid, sits with us to be a neutral observer."  
  
"I understand." Given her purpose, and her curiosity at the state of Human psions in this universe, Nisa was quick to follow up by asking, "May I attend?"  
  
She felt Oscar's confusion, but it faded as he sensed her reasoning. "I'm sure there'll be no objections. Not sure why you're interested in the Corps, though. You S0T5ers don't have to put up with them."  
  
"We do not," Nisa agreed. Old memories surfaced in her thoughts, unpleasant ones. "But we have our own problems."  
  
"Not surprised." Oscar shook his head. "Telepathy freaks out normals. They can't help it. It's scary stuff, the idea of people going through your head, messing with your memories and your thoughts, or programming you with mental blocks and commands. We have to face it too, so we get it from both ends."  
  
"I am familiar with such difficulties," Nisa said, following Oscar toward the far end of the market.  
  
He nodded and turned back. His eyes moved toward her waist and the silver objects hanging from her hips, each having a slight curve toward one end below a visible grip. She felt his surprise. "Wait, those…"  
  
She felt the complete sentence in his mind. _Those are lightsabers_! She nodded. "I was told your universe was unfamiliar with these weapons. They even let me carry them on the _Starlark_."  
  
"We don't have anything like them, but we've seen them," he answered. "You're not Order of Swenya, are you?"  
  
"I am not, but I am familiar with them," she answered. "A _swevyra'se_ of the Order visited the Enclave on Solaris and conversed with many of us on the teachings and Code of Swenya. I greatly enjoyed his visit, and as I am familiar with wielding blades, he was kind enough to show me how to construct these weapons."  
  
"Good to hear." Oscar smiled. "Not sure how the Corps will take it. They don't always get along with the Order. But I'm not here to make their lives comfortable." He checked his omnitool. "We'd better keep going, the presentation's going to start soon."  
  
Nisa nodded and followed him toward the core of Teyan Station.  
  
  
  
[CENTER]*****[/CENTER]  
  
  
  
  
  
The station's core included both habitation sections and social areas. A gymnasium, a library sector, even schools. The station rented out meeting rooms and the like for similar purposes, everything from social gatherings to religious meetings to clubs.  
  
Oscar led Nisa to one such room. The digital display beside the door read "Telepath Education: The Myths vs. The Facts", with an insignia for something called the Jenny Winters Foundation attached. Oscar snorted openly and Nisa felt his skepticism before he forced it away. He touched the key and opened the door.  
  
Inside were about seventy people in various kinds of garb. They were of various creeds and nations, although Nisa was still unfamiliar with many of those from the Earths of various universes. Their attention was diverted around the room with hushed conversations and the slight hum on her senses of passive psionic links between some of them. She quietly took a rear seat and set down her traveling bags while Oscar went toward the front of the room. He took a seat across from a figure that looked Human, at least until Nisa noticed his eyes were too dark-colored to match baseline Human. He wore what looked like a turquoise top with dark brown hair pulled back into a pony-tail.  
  
Between them, beside a holographic projector, was a person; person was the only word that applied because their gender was not determined readily by outward appearance. They had shoulder length brown hair and green eyes that were both kind and had the kind of depth to them that came when someone had seen far too much. They smiled readily enough when everyone sat down and it was perfectly genuine, introducing themselves in a Slavic accent that belied the name.   
  
“Hello everyone, glad you could make it. I’m Julian van der Berg, a telepath with the Jenny Winters Foundation” and they glyphed _‘For legal reasons’_ as something of a wry joke. “We have a lot to get through and we’ll split things into two sections. The first is the unfortunate death by holopoint that you’re all familiar with. I’ve tried to make it at least interesting. The second is optional and more of a question and answer session. Feel free to avail yourselves of the coffee, tea, and scones.”  
  
Nisa, from her place at the rear of the room, noted the mixed responses of those present. Many did accept the offered refreshments, although some only rose to do so when Oscar and the alien man across from him joined in. She sensed Oscar's mental sigh at the need for the gesture.  
  
More than that, she sensed the slight tension between Oscar and Julian. There was a familiarity between them that eased it, but did not eliminate it. The alien man, meanwhile, seemed to exude patience toward the matter, with perhaps a little exasperation.  
  
“I’m sure you’ve all noticed Jaman Yunan.” Julian gestured toward the Betazoid. “He’s here to make sure I don’t do anything fishy. I have no intention of doing that, but in the interests of full disclosure I’m a P8 and capable of it. You all have different degrees of contact with the Psi Corps, and what’s unique here is that for the first time, I’ll be free to give you our real perspective. For instance…” Julian switched from their introductory slide to one that had nothing but the words ‘The Earth Alliance and It’s Laws Really Suck’. “Inside Earth Alliance space, I am not permitted to say things like that. I am not permitted to openly criticize the Crawford-Tokash Act, or call sleepers the abomination that they are, I’d have to stick to the boiler-plate talking points that the Ministry of Information pre-approves. But we’re here now and it’s possible to have that sort of discussion.’  
  
Given her own knowledge of the state of things in E5B1 was still thin on various details, Nisa found the presentation educational, and more to the point, important. The reason she'd come to this universe would involve the Corps directly, after all, and she needed to understand what they said about themselves and what their beliefs were.  
  
All the same, it was clear there were many who weren't so interested in listening to Julian as she was. The telepaths nearest to Nisa openly ignored everything, and at times she sensed the skepticism and disbelief of others in the crowd.  
  
Nevertheless she found the presentation illuminating. The Corps' reputation in S0T5 was not entirely positive in Solarian space, although it tended to vary across the breadth of the known galaxy. Seeing that the reputation was colored by the kind of laws they were publicly forced to support and never question was useful to her. Julian was honest in how they presented the questionable actions of the Corps, accepting the justice behind some of the reputation, but explaining why such things happened and why they were committed to reform to eliminate these things. Reform necessary to save all telepaths, Corps and non-Corps, from continued abuses.  
  
The plight of telepaths reminded her of what psions endured in many places in her own home universe as well, particularly in the terrible conditions of the Fracture.  
  
While facts and figures did come up - the extent of the pogroms in the prior century, the ongoing limitation of telepath population from non-telepath parents having abortions instead of bearing children with the marker genes, the hate crime statistics and the rates of acquittals - Julian was clearly understanding of the need to present something more than dry statistics. Their argument was restrained passion, as they were clearly eager to persuade, but she didn't sense the kind of preachiness that could come from such passions. Given Oscar's earlier remarks about the Corps treating dissenters like "misguided children", it was clear Julian took such views to heart and was trying to avoid them.  
  
While Nisa didn't interact with them directly, not mentally, through her other gifts she sensed there was an inner sadness to them. Sadness, and some irritation, with the knowledge that their words were falling on deaf ears in a number of cases. They hid it well, at least, and Nisa felt the spark of hope that they were getting through to those who would listen to their words, who were willing to hear the message whatever their prior beliefs.  
  
She also noted Oscar's feelings. While his mind was also shielded, if alert to psionic activity from the others, the feelings within his being were a combination of grudging admiration for Julian's determination and skill and frustration at sitting through this all over again. Whatever Julian said, he distrusted the Corps' intentions in the long term. There was an old wound there, one she couldn't see the extent of, but which clearly left Oscar unwilling to trust.  
  
Yunan's thoughts were open in a way Nisa was surprised by. She sensed that it was a cultural thing. His people, amongst other telepaths, considered it natural to share their feelings and thoughts to any who wanted to sense them. It was a sort of natural honesty. There was distaste at being reminded of how the Human telepaths of this universe were treated, and, Nisa thought, a little uncertainty at where things were going for the Corps.  
  
“So, I suppose that wraps up the presentation itself and I’d like to open myself up to questions. Mr. Yunan, I’ll drop my defenses so you can do truth detection, as per usual.”  
  
The Betazoid man nodded. <So you have>.  
  
Even as he projected that answer, Nisa watched as twenty-one of the attendees stood up. Many left with the air of people who'd just put an unwelcome chore behind them. A couple were not quite so unkind, but were clearly unpersuaded and not caring to inquire further. The entire group shuffled out of the room without a further remark.  
  
For a brief moment, a frustrated little sigh came from Julian's lips, and their face betrayed pain. With their blocks down Nisa could feel the thoughts in their minds, a combination of frustration at what they felt to be sheer pig-headedness by some of the "blips", and more cutting, a sense of failure at having failed to get through it.  
  
The first question came mere seconds after the door closed. The man spoke with an accent that Nisa sensed Julian considered "Anglo-Caribbean". "So, you're going to challenge EarthGov on this stuff? You're going to end the sleepers?"  
  
“Yes, though please don’t blab that to EarthGov… granted I’m committing sedition just for being here.”  
  
Another voice spoke up, this one a woman with an accent Nisa thought was near-Solarian. "What about after? If you win, I mean? What if some telepaths don't want to be in the Corps?"  
  
“Then we’ll be a nation state with regularized emigration and immigration policies. You could for instance renounce citizenship if you wanted, or hold dual citizenship within the Systems Alliance or something depending on their laws. No more coercion.”  
  
Nisa felt the surprise of those attending. For some it became skepticism. It was something too good to be true.  
  
<They are truthful>, Yunan projected to the group.  
  
It did little to shift the skeptics. One mind openly projected <That just means he thinks they'll do it, not that they will.> Julian gave that one a side-eye for intentionally misgendering them.  
  
Other questions came, related to what the Corps was going to do, and Julian's answers were consistent on the matter.  
  
“If it makes you feel better, you could consider it pragmatism. Our population isn’t exactly huge, which means we need external support, and that means sapient rights like freedom to emigrate. Even if we were not committed to that ideologically. Which we are.”  
  
Nisa felt an intense emotion surge within the crowd. One man stood up and pointed an accusing finger at Julian. "You think you can just say something like that, play the 'honesty' game, and we'll just forget what the Corps has done! You think I'll forget what those damn camps did to my folks?! Well, you've got another thing coming, Corps man! You've got another damn thing coming! I saw those camps, I saw them in my parents' memories as they cried at night, they're seared into my mind! The Corps was a part of it, and they don't get to play victim now!" With that said the man stormed from the room, pain and rage oozing from his being such that Nisa whispered a prayer that the All-Highest ease his soul.  
  
It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. It wouldn’t be the last. And what everyone in the room could feel from Julian was that they honestly understood it. “The Corps is victim and perpetrator both, without the freedom to say no. We don’t want to be either, and are prepared to force the issue. You can believe me or not, that’s your call.”   
  
The outburst, and Julian's reasoned response, left the remaining attendees quiet. For a moment it seemed no more questions would come, but a woman off to the side spoke up with another accent similar to Julian's. "The Corps has said many terrible things about the Free Colony. EarthGov makes it do so, you say, so what does the Corps really believe about the Colony? If you win, will you still be against it, or will you look to make normal relations with it?"  
  
Nisa sensed the mental sigh from Oscar. He'd heard this question and the answer before, and now he'd be treated to it again.  
  
“The Corps still considers those on the Free Colony to be our family, if estranged for understandable reasons. I have it on good authority from the powers that be that our stance would be to establish normal relations, even close ties if possible. Though that might, as you can imagine, take some time.” Julian paused “And do keep in mind, I just committed several crimes that would get me executed, so don’t go talking about that where EarthGov can hear you.”  
  
There were nods in reply. Nisa waited patiently to see if there would be further questions, but none seemed to be coming.  
  
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll end it there and let you get to your interim quarters and outbound connections if that’s what you want. But if you want to stay, if you want to help us end the oppression of eighteen million of your fellow telepaths and have a hand in shaping what is to come, we’d be overjoyed to have you. Come talk to me, and we’ll get that set up.” Julian braced for disappointment, behind their newly reconstructed blocks.  
  
In the seconds after Julian finished speaking, there was a quiet uncertainty in the air. Nisa sensed their anticipation at whether or not they'd convinced many, if any, of those present to sign up.  
  
Someone in attendance stood. Others joined them, and soon a number more. They went for the door, minds made up, although not all were as hostile to Julian as they had been at the start. When the door slid to a close for the final time, twenty-four people were still in their chairs, not counting Nisa herself. Exactly half of those left after the prior departures.  
  
Julian beamed at them. “Welcome to the Revolution. Come on up, I’ll get you the codes you’ll need, and our military Transport schedules.”  
  
Those remaining lined up. A few had some jitters, but not enough to dissuade. Nisa felt their unified conviction that they could do _something_ about the situation back home.  
  
At his table, Oscar glanced toward Nisa. <Better than their average>, he p'cast at her. <Although I've seen them get over half of the crowd before.>  
  
<You do not resent that these people are making this choice? Even though your people flew them out here to get away from the Corps?> Nisa cast back.  
  
 _<_ No. This is about choice, it's always been about choice. I think they'll get disappointed, personally, but at least I gave them a choice.> Oscar's satisfaction was clear on that. <And maybe I'm a pessimist and the Corps' revolution really will be a good thing in the end. If so, good for them. EarthGov really does need a swift kick in the pants, and if this all ends with an Allied Systems armada pulling a Sheridan and blasting its way to Earth to support a Corps uprising, I'll be watching on IUNS with a tub of popcorn.>  
  
Nisa wondered if that would come about. Her own reason for coming here to see the Corps had a connection to the Alliance, so she knew there was some cooperation there. But would it come to that?  
  
As she considered these things, Julian handled the line of volunteers. When the last volunteer was settled, she stood and approached. "Hello," she said, using a convention that she'd observed as common across Solaris and elsewhere. "I am Nisa Tari."  
  
“Julian van den Berg. A pleasure, though… “ Julian glanced down at the lightsabers dangling from her belt. “Your weapons mean it’s unlikely you’re here to join up. What can I do for you?” <Never thought I’d go from social worker to military recruiter, but here I am!>  
  
"You are familiar with lightsabers?" she asked.  
  
“They’re known to our leadership. They’ve had some dealings with members of the Order of Swenya, and my brief was very thorough.” <And I know what to do when the red ones show up.>  
  
Nisa blinked at the reference. It was Julian's surface thoughts that told her what he meant. "Corrupted ones," she said. "I see what you mean, yes." She took the nearby seat. "As for your question, I am here to see about passage to one of your colonies. The Tau Atrea colony."  
  
A flash of understanding illuminated Julian’s surface thoughts. “Excellent! I got a message that someone of your...combination of talents might come by seeking passage, though I am curious as to why, if you don’t mind my asking?”  
  
"It is quite alright," Nisa said. "I've come to offer my services in training a child of your Corps, Husn Mira, with her talents in the Divine Gift."  
  
“I think I can infer what that means, and if so it’s rather important she be trained properly. We have a transport ship leaving in two days carrying people back into our space. Tau Atrea is one of its stops.”  
  
Nisa nodded. "I will wait for it, then."  
  
“Come with me, I’ll make sure you have a place to stay.” Julian motioned for Nisa to follow them. “We have guest quarters in our little enclave.”  
  
"I thank you," Nisa said, taking the time to collect her bags before following them.  
  
  
*****  
  
The Corps' enclave on the station amounted to a section of one of the habitat decks, rented out to the Jenny Winters Foundation on paper. This gave the enclave several suites more than their contingent required and access to a multi-purpose room they used for communal meals and enclave meetings.  
  
Julian left Nisa in one of the quarters, a cozy studio apartment a little larger than the room Nisa occupied while staying at the Enclave on Solaris. It was furnished to general Dorei tastes, with colors of earthy browns and yellows on the furniture and walls. A wall replicator unit was on one end while the other had a holovid projector. The bed was cream white, its shape rounded with a pile of orange pillows. Off to one corner beside the bed was the sliding door to a bathroom with a water shower.  
  
There was little point in unpacking her things since she would be gone within a few days. Nisa removed only the clothes she would be wearing until departure, setting them up in the empty closet. While made on Solaris, they were made to her specifications, proper Yildiz clothing with colored headscarves, blouses, vests, and pants. She looked at her two _jilbabs_ and decided to keep them stowed.  
  
Her next pack was the one she was most concerned with. She set the case, a manufactured plastic shell case, down on a table and opened it. Inside, nestled in Solarian synthsilk, were her twin _shamsir_ : her dancing swords. Made of el-Yasuj steel, they were prize works from her homeworld made by an expert blacksmith. The curved blades had the head of a falcon on their pommels.  
  
Memories, both good and bad, filled her at their sight. She reached into the case and pulled the swords out. They were each about a meter in length, not counting their hilts, although their reach was reduced by the curve toward the ends. She brought her arms up and felt her muscle memory move her into the first form of one of her favorite dances, the Dust Devil. She started to twirl around her room, slicing the blades through the air as if in the center of a whirlwind, her feet and body shifting as if to meet the moves of an invisible partner.  
  
She started shifting into another beginning pose when the chime at the door went off. She stopped and straightened, turning toward the door. "Yes?"  
  
The door opened and Julian stood just at the threshold. “We’re having dinner shortly if you’d like to join us. We have replicators in the rooms, sure, but tend to take meals communally.”  
  
It took Nisa only a moment to nod. "I will be honored. There may be some of your foods I must reject, should they be _haram_ and not _kosyer_. I hope you understand?"  
  
“Of course.” Julian replied “We would never dream of taking offense, we have enough religions represented among our number that you shouldn’d lack for options.” Julian wouldn’t presume what her requirements were, but they openly suspected, given the words used, that they would be similar to those of Muslims and Jews, and they always accommodated both.  
  
"I shall get ready then." Nisa smiled and nodded. She didn't move to put her swords away yet, however, as it would be rude to turn her back on a guest at her door.  
  
“I’ll get out of your hair so you can stow those, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything…”  
  
She shook her head. "I was merely practicing my dancing forms. I had to forgo practice on the trip here. The liners would not let me carry the swords in my compartment."  
  
“I see.” Julian nodded. “Well, we don’t disarm telepaths here so feel free when you get the chance. Though… dancing?” Julian was officially intrigued.  
  
"My people value sword-dancing as a form of art," Nisa explained. "My parents performed as sword-dancers when the seasons allowed and taught me the styles." She couldn't keep her sadness from leaking past her passive blocks. "I can't see them anymore, but by maintaining the art, I remain linked to them."  
  
Julian gaver her an empathetic look. They too could never see their parents again, though Julian suspected the reasons were very different and their outlook on it was likewise very different. “I can certainly understand that, and with a motivation to practice like that… it must be stunning to see. I’ll let you get back to it, we should be ready for dinner in about thirty minutes.”   
  
"I will be ready," she answered, and with that response, Julian departed.  
  
  
*****  
  
The multi-purpose room was large enough to seat several dozen people, reminding Nisa very much of the hall at the temple in al-Lahir. Throughout her life she'd attended many feasts and dinners there, wedding dinners and holy feast days and funerals.  
  
Here, though, the sun of Toutaine was not present, nor the cooled air of the wind coming off the Samir River. The atmosphere was more of the same breathing gases pumped throughout the station. The foods laid out on the table were not the dishes she remembered growing up, although a few had some similarities to them. The balance of various food groups was precise, that was clear.  
  
When she arrived it was just a minute or two before the meal was to begin. Some of the assembled were seated, others were standing. Julian was with a woman with black hair with a few wisps of gray, olive skin, and kind eyes that Nisa could tell concealed an inner ferocity; and two others clad in a similar suit. Nisa approached them and, as they visually noticed her, glyphed an introductory greeting with her name, her hometown of al-Lahir, and that she was a Yildiz of Toutaine. The older woman obviously in the lead of the suit-wearers glyphed back that she was Erika Flores from the Corps’ legal division, and that her associates were Jamal and Jiaying Chen. They also wore matching wedding bands, and he’d evidently taken her last name.  
  
"May the All-Highest bless your union," Nisa said to the Chens aloud. "I am aware of Julian's purpose here, but why are…" She struggled for the word she meant to use, one she'd only been exposed to briefly on Solaris and elsewhere. "...lawyers, yes? Why are lawyers here?"  
  
“Thank you!” Jiaying replied, clearly their marriage was not strictly arranged because Jamal leaned over and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Sometimes someone leaves Earth Alliance space with children. Sometimes they're children with a parent still in the Corps, sometimes someone else’s kids. We’re here to litigate custody disputes.”  
  
Nisa sensed their unease with the issue and resentment of those they considered kidnappers. "I see. Truly a difficult issue, and I understand why your presence is necessary."  
  
“It really is…” Erika interjected, and glyphed a mental image of her beating her head into her desk.  
  
Nisa stifled a giggle at the comical image.  
  
At that point attention was brought to the tables by an older gentleman of South-Asian extraction, and everyone took the nearest seat. Nisa's seat placed her between Julian and Jiaying, with Jamal beside his wife. The rest of the round table included Erika and two others. The first was a stocky man with strawberry blonde hair and a red-tinted but closed cropped beard who looked like he’d seen his share of fights, the other somehow managed to look like a bird of prey despite not actually resembling them physically. In fact, he was otherwise nondescript except for the tanned skin. Both of them introduced themselves with little name tags gyphed over their heads. Alastair Wallace from security division, and Markus Roaratonga, which for some reason seemed to Nisa like it was at least partially a nom de guerre. He did specify he was in Metapol though.  
  
Plates were provided and passed around so everyone could get a little of what they wanted. With barriers mostly down Nisa picked up the names of various foods. Most were permissible to her religiously and she took her share of them all, favoring somewhat those that looked or smelled like they came from home.  
  
The benefit of all attendees being telepaths was that no one needed to speak to impart information. The man who called them to the tables glyphed a general message to those present to give or recite whatever blessings they chose. Nisa lowered her voice and recited the dinner prayer in her native language. " _All-Highest God, I honor You and the bounty You have provided for my body's nourishment, as Your teachings nourish my soul._ _May Your blessings flow as the river to those that worked the fields and nurtured the animals of this bounty. A-men_."  
  
Erika for her part crossed herself and thanked God for the food, she was Catholic but somewhat lax about it. The one who called dinner to order, whose name was Saqib, bowed his head and muttered his own prayer in Arabic. “ _Bismillahi wa 'ala baraka-tillah_ ”. The rest were polite, but otherwise silent.   
  
The time passed. For the first few minutes conversation ceased as everyone enjoyed their food and drink. Nisa spent the time quietly pondering the prayer of Saqib, which sounded very much like he was trying to speak Toutaini words in some way, although she couldn't be sure. A couple even sounded like he was saying a name of God. She knew a little of the Multiverse, enough to know that the languages of old still existed elsewhere, in universes where Mankind's homeworld was not lost and forgotten. _This may explain why they have so many dishes that are_ kosyer, she pondered.  
  
When conversation started up again, it was telepathic - allowing for all to continue eating - and it was Saqib who initiated it. <So, Erika, how was your day? I caught that mental image earlier, is it going that well?> There was mirth there, but also tension. He was worried about it but trying to project calm.  
  
Erika groaned audibly, which said everything. <It’s a mess. A horrible thrice-cursed mess. The father is in Transport division and his now-ex-wife left the Corps with their three kids out from under him during deployment. So it’s basically the perfect case to test whether or not the Alliance respects our culture and child-raising practices or considers them _prima facia_ inferior. Which is going to determine a lot moving forward, as you might imagine.> Nisa got the impression that Erika meant that with a certainty that implied she’d be the one doing the determining. Saqib and everyone else at the table winced. Marcus for his part was trying to conceal being simply _incensed_ and failing.   
  
<Hate the Corps or no… Christ doing that during a deployment is shitty. ‘I know you’re off fighting to end our oppression but fuck you and everything you stand for. I’ve taken the kids.’>  
  
<Yeah well, there’s nothing for it…> Julian replied. <Some people are just that damned selfish. It’s not like we can _legally or politically_ extract the kids…as much as I might want to.>  
  
While chewing softly Nisa's curiosity led to her sensing more of the case. She didn't understand everything, but she did pick up the fact that the mother in the case was herself ordered to a year-long job as a Commercial telepath, one that was going to place her hours of spaceflight away from her children, and that this played a significant role in her actions.  
  
Given her thoughts were unshielded, the others at the table soon turned eyes on her, recognizing that Nisa picked up those facts without them being mentioned in the conversation. <I did not mean to pry>, she p'cast. <My Gift, my connection to the All-Highest, grants me such insights.>  
  
<It’s alright> Erika replied. <I am aware of those abilities, and it isn’t as if it’s that private, if it was we wouldn’t be discussing it. Plus you’re not wrong. It is still selfish though, we rotate those positions so people don’t get stuck in them forever, and she lost the lottery. Everyone here has some kind of family they don’t get to see while they’re here. Hell, Julian simply _cannot_ go home. She’d be able to do it monthly.>   
  
<I understand, and thank you for understanding>, Nisa answered. <If I may ask, if both parents are gone, who cares for the children? Grandparents? The brothers and sisters of their parents?>  
  
<In a sense.> Julian said. <We do the lion’s share of raising children communally. Kind of like a boarding school but with more a family approach. Biological parents are involved and important when they can be but that’s not always possible and children need stability as much as they need love.>  
  
<My people raise orphans much the same way.> Nisa recalled the orphanage of al-Lahir, where she'd spend some of her youth helping the caretakers and teachers tend to their charges in accordance to her peoples' teachings of providing service to the most vulnerable. <Family members help tend for children, but it is the responsibility of the whole community to see to their care and education.>  
  
<Exactly. In a way, Earth Alliance law makes us all legal orphans, if not orphans in fact. We’ve adapted our culture accordingly.> Saqib nodded sagely.  
  
<Even if some of us want to take the mundanes to task for it in a big way…> From Markus.  
  
<Hey now!> Alastair interjected, even his thoughts had an Irish accent. <None o’ that. It’ll be all we can do to keep them from killin’ us all. Don’t aim the sights too wide.>  
  
Nisa considered what that meant. _They're preparing for a revolution_ , she'd been told, remembering her communication with Lucilla Lucero. _So they're very careful._ She p'cast, openly, <You are worried the Alliance will rule against you based on how you raise children, then?>  
  
<It’s always a concern, especially when things get political. There are two types of Gersallians I've met. The first group act like we'd all be better off if we acted like Gersallians, although most don't actually say so. The other group recognizes other cultures and ways of thinking exist and try to reconcile everything that way. I'm just lucky Drentiya is one of the second group. But it’s a difficult decision legally, and even the best people have biases…> Erika was thinking about Solomon, and how she’d split the proverbial baby.  
  
<What would Suleiman have to do with splitting babies?> Nisa's brow furrowed. <Why would any wise king want to do that to an infant?>  
  
<We have a story of him being asked to arbitrate between two women who both claimed to be a child’s mother. He offered to split the baby as a means of determining who the real mother was.> Saqib explained. <It is common to three major religions on our Earth.>  
  
<I see.> Nisa nodded in understanding. <We have stories of Suleiman as well, a great king of Paradise blessed by God with wisdom.> She glanced to Erika. <This Gersallian woman, I sense you think well of her, but fear she may be swayed against you this time?>  
  
<Yes to both questions. When the law isn’t clear, when the situation is messy, people tend to revert to the patterns of thought that are comfortable and easy. The default of having children raised by their mother is a powerful one. It wouldn’t be that big a deal if it didn’t set legal precedent. But you know, if you don’t mind my asking, your religion shares some similarities with many of ours, clearly. Mind explaining the basic premise?>  
  
Nisa nodded. <Of course.> She settled her mind. <My people are the Yildiz, one of many to populate the planet Toutaine. We came to our world over three thousand years ago after the Fall, what others of my universe call the Reignfall. The people of Toutaine share a religious belief in All-Highest God, although our ways are different from those of the Amir and the other tribes of Toutaine.>  
  
Sensing their attention, and the most obvious question, Nisa started with the basic fact. <The Yildiz worship God, the All-Highest, the Creator of Three Names.>  
  
<Three names?>  
  
<God has many names. He is the Creator, the Just, the Merciful. Highest of all are the Three Names of God: Allah, representing the Power of God; Yahwey, the Laws of God; and Isya, the Love of God.> Nisa recited each to its full meaning as if it were a religious requirement, which they could all sense was true.  
  
Julian piped up with an audible “Aha!” before switching to telepathy. <Many of our own religious divisions are along those same lines. Differing emphasis and theological arrangements around each one.> Academic understanding, but Saqib and Erika gave them a look. Julian wasn’t wrong, but was an atheist. <Of course, our universe’s religions are still grappling with the concept of the multiverse. Jews are fine with it, they just shrug and figure God put Jews everywhere. Evangelical Protestants, well it might as well be medieval Catholic discussions of mythical dog-men.>  
  
<I have not been home since before the Multiverse opened, but Rabyi Muammar will likely have an explanation, if he knows.> Nisa shook her head. <It is possible he does not. Toutaine does not have much contact with the wider galaxy, and much of that contact is…> She stopped the p'cast, but with her mind relatively open the others could easily get the images she had. Of the men, women, and children of families who displeased the Amir, or who crossed their lords, being chained and carted onto spaceships.  
  
The collective and uniform response to that was that there was potentially - if the people there wanted it - somewhere else that was due for a coup. But they didn’t actually voice that it was just coursing through their minds with variations on detail. They were, afterall, actively involved in one active revolution. It was their way. Saqib though thought to ask the one question that could clear up the question that Julian had intrinsically asked.   
  
<The Amir protects my people from others who disapprove of our beliefs. But I learned of the cruelty of his ways when I left Toutaine, and it was because of him that I fled.>  
  
<I see…> It didn’t take a genius to figure out that there would be demands placed on telepaths or anyone really with an absolute ruler like that, and compromises would need to be made to secure survival in the face of religious persecution. Saqib wasn’t going to press on the matter. <On… a slightly happier topic, if you’ll indulge my curiosity, what of the origin of the population? Most of our legends about that, > Because even the most devout accepted evolution by natural selection <have Earth as the origin of human life. Hence the theological issues.>  
  
For a moment Nisa considered her answer. Since leaving Toutaine she'd learned much of the galaxy and its history. She knew that her world was settled toward the end of the Reignfall, as it was called, most likely by people fleeing that event. Aside from some Solarians who talked about Humans coming from a planet called Earth, most people didn't recall the world of Humanity's birth, at least not until the Multiverse opened and dozens of Earths became known.  
  
But she could tell the context was not just historical truth, but religious. They wanted to know about what her people _believed_ as their origins.  
  
<Long ago, there was the Fall,> she began, chewing on what tasted like a piece of mutton as she did. <Before the Fall, there was Paradise, God's gift to Mankind. Under the great kings, Mankind prospered in the limitless bounty the All-Highest granted them.>  
  
<But Shaitan, Father of Lies and Lord of Death, despised Mankind for having God's love. Shaitan sent minions to destroy Paradise, creatures of madness and rage that could take the shape of Man and hide among us, even become us. To aid His creations, God breathed power into some to resist. For many, he gave sight of mind, the ability to see into other minds and to know the truth. They could see the minions of Shaitan for what they were, and drive them out. Others were Touched with divine power, the Divine Gift, to aid those with sight of mind. A few truly blessed even hold both in their souls, such as myself.>  
  
<For many centuries, these gifts kept the dark ones at bay. But Shaitan is cunning and cruel. He turned some of those with the gifts against justice and mercy, until all of Paradise was corrupted by their tyranny.>  
  
<God's wrath was great. Mankind was no longer worthy of the Paradise He granted us. So He took it away, along with those who remained true, and cast out the wicked and corrupt into the Abyss with Shaitan. For those who were left, those who were not true but not corrupted, He took the memories of Paradise until we prove worthy, and sent us into the galaxy to new worlds that would purify us of Shaitan's touch.>  
  
<Toutaine was the lot of my ancestors. The deserts are harsh, but waters flow and make life possible. We can grow food and prosper, so long as we only consume that which is _kosyer_ and deny ourselves that which is _haram,_ that is, touched by Shaitan. It is where our souls are tried and made worthy, until the day we are worthy of Paradise.>  
  
<Well it seems to me as if that settles the question from a religious perspective then. If everyone is from elsewhere, the exact origin point becomes irrelevant. Of course there are people in different universes. Nothing says there can’t be.> Julian actually really liked that.  
  
<I consider it a miracle to see so many forms of life>, Nisa replied. <As for Earth, I know that many believe it was the Paradise my people believe we were thrown from. That may indeed be true. But whether or not it is, it doesn't change what I believe, or what my people believe.> She concentrated for a moment on a dish before her, a blend of tomato sauce and what she knew to be called pasta with a layer of white cheese on it.  
  
<So, how did it come to you to train young Ms. Mira?> A question from Erika.  
  
<I was approached at the Enclave by a respected member there, Kasszas S'srishin, who told me of a need to train a child in the Divine Gift, and that he sensed I was the most capable among those at the Enclave. He put me in touch with Lucilla Lucero from the Alliance.> The name won some recognition from the people present. Nisa glyphed what she knew of Lucero, particularly that she was the creator, or re-inventor at least, of the lightsabers being spread across the metaphysical practitioners of the Multiverse. <It was she who told me more about this girl of your Corps, Husn Mira, and her concerns about her training. After speaking with her about Husn, and Husn's beliefs, I agreed to come and see if she was willing to be trained by me.>  
  
<Ah. That makes sense. I took the liberty of looking her up - we keep records of all our members - she’s young, but a devout muslim.>  
  
<I have heard she was devoted.> Nisa nodded. <I may be better able to relate to her than other teachers would.>  
  
<I suspect that Kasszas S’srishin thought similarly…> Erika scrunched up her face, there were things she was concealing but it was as if gears were turning in her head, she was being careful how she put something. <We’re institutionally secular, there are issues involved with her abilities that we’re not equipped for and, well… Gersallian philosophy probably isn’t a good fit either.>  
  
<I certainly don’t envy her.> Jamal added. <Being first. Imagine being in the first generation of telepaths to manifest. Having to figure out everything on their own. At least Husn isn’t having to dodge death squads…> The way he trailed off, there was a ‘yet’ in there that remained unspoken.  
  
<There are dangers to those with the Gift. It can be used for ill as well as for good, exposing the soul to the influence of the Abyss and Shaitan.> Nisa had a few memories of facing such corrupted, and the common denominator in her experience was having no guidance in their use of the gift, or even worse, being led astray by others. <Once a soul is corrupted by Shaitan, it is rare to successfully cleanse one.> She didn't hide her hope that she could convince Husn to accept at least some training.  
  
<I can’t speak to that directly other than the fact that her teachers say good things. When it comes to training children, there are a few types. She seems to be in the subset who thinks that it’s only smart to pay attention to those who’ve been in a similar position before. I might worry if we tried to cludge together a training regimen.> Julian shrugged, unworried.  
  
<Whatever her choice, I look forward to meeting her.>  
  
  
*****  
  
Across the station, nobody noticed the uniformed man entering the docking area's ventilation access carrying a box. If someone had, they wouldn't have minded, as the Human was clad in a station personnel uniform, and had a station ID, and both were perfectly legitimate. They were issued to someone who didn't exist, but they were legitimate.  
  
The man in question was good at this sort of thing. He mostly worked in enabling heists and other such infiltration-related crimes, but money was money, and his current employers were paying him well for a relatively minor job.  
  
That job consisted of two things: accessing the ventilation center for the station's docking torus and planting a box there. They provided the fake ID and uniform, even, indicating they either had connections to the station's operating staff, or some of the best hackers he'd ever heard of.  
  
The first part of his job was complete. For the second, he opened up the access port for the central shaft and inserted the box inside. He promptly closed it. With this work done, he left the room. At a leisurely pace he returned to his rented quarters in the core to change, left behind the uniform and ID, and took passage on an Allied Systems-chartered liner heading for the M4P2 universe. His part in the job was done.  
  
As such, he wasn't there to watch the box shift in shape until it was more of a cylinder, giving it the right shape to navigate Teyan Station's life support systems. To avoid security sensors, it generated a low anti-grav field, just powerful enough to keep it half a centimeter from the surface of the ducts.  
  
It started to move quietly, to a destination that even its program did not yet know.


	2. Chapter 2

The dream returned. Nisa was home, in the nineteenth summer of her life. Her skill as a blade-dancer matched her parents. Many honored personages sought to win her hand for their family's son, and her own parents were proposing arrangements.  
  
Aside from teaching her in their skills, her parents showed her a greater scope of her divine gift. "We are all touched by the All-Highest", her father explained. "We are called to serve All-Highest God in all ways, as thanks for this gift." The training let her sense her parents as she never had before, enabling all three to dance with such skill that even outside the Yildiz their talents were known and sought.  
  
Nisa wanted the dream to stay here. To remind her of the happy times.  
  
The moment she saw the plaza, she knew it would not be so.  
  
It was a market plaza in the town of Gharab, only a dozen or so kilometers north of the Amir's personal capital at el-Yasuj. At the request of local elders the Tari family was participating in a local festival, displaying their talents for all to see. The crowd oohed and aahed at every movement of their blades, gasping with each cut that seemed _sure_ to cut skin, yet did not.  
  
It should have been one of their best performances. It was one of their best… until it wasn't.  
  
The blade in Nisa's right hand was moving toward her father when the voices shouted in her head. It caught her completely by surprise, as if the crowd was roaring on the inside of her skull. Her blade went off center. Her father cried out as it sliced cleanly through his shoulder, nearly into his throat. Had he not moved at the last moment, she would have slit his throat open.  
  
Not that she knew it at the time. The shouting in her head overwhelmed her. She collapsed, the blades falling from her hands, her throat hoarse from her agonized shriek. She put her hands to her ears, trying to block all of the shouting out, but it got even louder. Louder and louder until it all went quiet and dark.  
  
Nisa woke up with a headache. She rose from her bed, her dark hair in a disheveled mess as it cascaded down to her shoulders, her quivering hand reaching for her forehead. _It was just a dream_ , she reminded herself. _A dream only, it's done and past_.  
  
But the pain was still there. The pain of the day her mind's psionic potential came alive… and when she was doomed to exile from her family and home.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
There was another day to go before the Corps' transport would depart for Tau Atrea. Nisa chose to use the day to explore Teyan Station more thoroughly. After morning breakfast and prayers she departed her quarters for the station's commercial market. Her funds were limited so she didn't intend to purchase anything.  
  
But the point wasn't shopping, it was the sight of the market itself. She walked along the shops and took in the variety of life. While the thoughts of the beings around her pressed upon the walls she raised around her mind, she delighted in the warmth of life here. It resonated with her soul to see so many creations of God living and working together. The species present easily reached into the dozens. She saw Pakled traders, Asari wanderers, and Brakiri merchants pass her by. Along one shop a family of six-limbed furred Gy'torans chittered away in conversation with a feline Rr'timm. A pair of Miqo'te women manned a stall selling Ys'tallan silk from their homeworld, one of them in vibrant conversation with a Human customer.  
  
At one eatery a group of Salarians and Llort were engaged in a vibrant conversation while a Vulcan man and Minbari woman, of the Religious caste, more quietly conversed over their beverages.  
  
Nearby was a data brokerage showing economic information from across the Multiverse. The blue-skinned, purple-dotted Dorei man operating it was in the midst of a heated discussion with a pair of Ferengi. A nearby terminal showed market information of great interest to a suited Volus and a Turian woman.  
  
 _So many species. So many cultures._ Nisa couldn't keep the smile off her face. _God has blessed me in my exile with such sights._  
  
<It is something.>  
  
She recognized the mental voice of Oscar Mendoza. He walked past her and stopped briefly. She could sense his contentment with his breakfast, but it was slight compared to the emotions roiling in his mind and being. He had the air of a man about to endure conflict, and quite possibly, start it. <We are blessed with such sights>, Nisa cast back. <But I sense your discomfort. What is wrong?>  
  
<One of our ships, the _Eiberhorn_ , is overdue and not answering hails.> She felt the uncertainty and a tinge of horror in the worst case scenario. Strangely, it didn't involve the deaths of those involved.  
  
<Could it have been attacked by bandits?>  
  
<In hyperspace? No. There's only one group that I can see disappearing a ship in hyperspace…>  
  
The distrust she'd sensed yesterday blazed with that thought, and she knew now whom he suspected. <You think the Corps is behind it?>  
  
"I aim to find out," he said aloud, after which he continued walking toward the station core.  
  
Sensing imminent conflict in the future, and wishing to keep it from escalating, Nisa followed.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Alastair was busy pouring over a map of the jumpgates in the security office with his back to the door when Oscar Mendoza got there, he noticed the ball of fear, suspicion, and rage just in time to whip around and narrowly block a haymaker with his elbow, wrap his arm around Oscar’s, then drop his hips and turn slamming the man into a wall. The two others in the room leapt into action but Alastair waved them off. <Don’t. He’s just scared and not thinkin’ straight..>  
  
“I see ya just found out about the _Eiberhorn_. Are ye bloody well done and ready ta talk like a fookin’ adult, or do ya wanta go a few more rounds?”  
  
"They were taking hyperspace all the way!" Oscar shouted, his voice carrying through the door as Nisa entered behind him. "They couldn't have been intercepted, not by anyone but _you!_ " The waves of his panic washed over Nisa, both of her extra senses picking up on it. She knew, there, that he had friends on the _Eiberhorn_. "We gave you the routes, the IDs! You're the only ones who could've taken them!"  
  
<Oscar, rage will not help you>, she urged him.   
  
“Oh yes, _of course_ we’ve engaged in such a transparent deception! Risked our diplomatic ties and truce with Lyta f’r fookin’ what? Mustache twirling evil purposes?”  
  
"Maybe there was someone aboard you didn't want to get here, I don't know!" Oscar couldn't escape the pin, but despite being up against the wall he continued to shout, if just to give relief to his panic. "We trusted you! Now one of our ships is missing!"  
  
A figure stepped up beside Nisa that she only knew was approaching due to her connection to the Divine Gift. Markus was completely silent in both his stride and in his mind. But then he spoke up.   
  
“This is a port of call Mr. Mendoza. We can only do so much to secure information here. Or we might have traitors in our own midst who need to be buried behind a chemical shed. Or, let’s be blunt, Lyta doesn’t have good operational control of her people. _Terrorists_ are like that. No discipline.”  
  
There was a certain hint in Markus' voice, and a sense in his being, that prompted Nisa to cast an uncertain look his way. _Is he trying to provoke Oscar?_  
  
The insight came to her, and she didn't stop herself from asking, "Why do you think he has information to leak from his mind? You're trying to provoke him into such thoughts."  
  
Oscar, for his part, started laughing. "Oh, but that's how they think, Miss Tari. Especially that one. It shows you how little they think of us." Alistair wasn't releasing him from the wall just yet, so he couldn't turn entirely to face her. "He thinks this is a set up, that we're trying to make it look like the Corps violated the agreement with Governor Rankin and the Railroad. As if we'd sacrifice innocent people to do it!"  
  
At that, Markus glyphed a date. April 12th, 2263, along with a set of numbers, in the thousands. And another date, just a few months before, with a number over twenty thousand. “Of course, no one who has ever left the Psi Corps would ever risk or suicide bomb innocents… it is completely unreasonable of me to suspect that.”  
  
That drew a snarl. "That wasn't the Railroad, damn you! All we want to do is get out and have a choice in our lives! If it weren't for the Allied Systems, you'd still be putting the jackboot to our throats!"  
  
“If it weren’t for the Psi Corps upholding Crawford-Tokash and the Charter until the day we violently stop, the mundanes would have _exterminated_ our ancestors before we had the resources and organization to fight back. But it’s all about you isn’t it? You’d rather run away and preserve your precious moral purity than show solidarity with your fellow telepaths; rather risk the future of our children than safeguard it.” He waved a gloved hand dismissively. “Think for a moment Mr. Mendoza, if I am concerned about the possibility of your people orchestrating a set up, what can you conclude about Psi Corps involvement? Hmm?”  
  
"That you're not in the loop," Oscar shot back. To which Markus just laughed. A deep belly-laugh. The laugh of a man who’d just heard something so ignorant at such a perfect time that it was deeply amusing. That was on the surface. What Nisa got was a bit deeper than that though. She got the feeling that he was concealing the source of his confidence that the Psi Corps wasn’t involved.  
  
“That’s one hell of a closed-loop!” He managed to say,after regaining himself. “Look, we were tracking the _Eiberhorn_ until the moment it disappeared from our Navigator’s p’hearing in the void between Signet and Deneb. We’re taking this seriously enough - because we don’t know what happened - that I will personally be taking the _Psyche_ back into our space, which will pass through the same hyperspace route.”  
  
Nisa sensed only skepticism from Oscar on that matter. The distrust he felt to the Corps was fanned by the apparent loss of the _Eiberhorn_. "He is sincere," she said softly, cutting short any riposte. "And he truly does not know the fate of your ship. I believe it makes him, all of them, as upset as it has you, Oscar."  
  
She sensed the hostility in Oscar draining slightly as she spoke. "You're heading with them, aren't you?" he asked quietly. Alistair released him, sensing his physical aggression was no longer present. He turned to face Nisa directly. "You're traveling on the _Psyche_?"  
  
"I am," she said. "I'm coming to meet with someone in one of their colonies."  
  
He nodded numbly. WIth his rage spent, the frustration was giving way to panic. The entire Railroad was at risk and he felt helpless for the fates of those innocent people on the _Eiberhorn_. With his emotions still at a pitch state those feelings leaked through his blocks, allowing every telepath in the room to feel them, to know how raw they were. Even Markus' expression turned sympathetic, although Nisa felt a bit of resentment in his being at the _Eiberhorn_ crew.  
  
With some embarrassment Oscar went to the door. "I'm going to let Governor Kuhln and Governor Rankin know we've confirmed the loss," he said. "And that you're going to investigate it. We might see if some of our own ships can do the same. Maybe an Alliance vessel with telepaths on the crew can go in and join the search."  
  
“By all means. The larger the number of ships, the greater the chance we find something.” Markus replied.  
  
Oscar nodded and walked out of the room.  
  
Once he'd been gone for about ten seconds, Nisa noted the tension wasn't draining from the room. It took on a different tone, one laced with its own worry and uncertainty over the _Eiberhorn_ and the _Psyche_ , and the parties that could be behind it.  
  
Still, it was Oscar she was most worried for. She nodded to them before leaving the office.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Nisa's worry over Oscar led her along. She could sense him even now, a panic and frustration giving in to despair. It formed a terrible, saddening beacon that stood out among the other beings on Teyan, bidding her to follow.  
  
She found him at a drinking establishment, imbibing a clear liquid from a glass. She gently probed at his mind, to let him know she was present. The reply was silence, mental and verbal. The only thing she felt through his blocks was the sensation of alcohol, "tequila", burning its way down his throat.  
  
She took the seat beside him. The bartender approached and she waived him off. "Gonna pay for anything?" the man growled.  
  
"My friend's drink," she answered, pulling the credit chit she had from the pocket of her inner garment.  
  
The bartender accepted it. "Solarian money? Well, it'll spend like anything else." After running the charge he walked away.  
  
"You don't have to pay for me," Oscar mumbled.  
  
"I chose to." Nisa set her hands on the bar. "The panic I feel within you is painful. I hope my condolences for the deaths of your friends…"  
  
"Dead? Ha!" Oscar's laugh bitter. "God, I hope they're dead, compared to the alternative."  
  
"Alternative?"  
  
The answer was mental, leaking through the walls of his mind. Nisa felt a familiar revulsion at the concept, one that had many terms, but which was generally known by one word: _slavery_.  
  
"There's a slave trade for telepaths," Oscar explained. "Been around since teeps started showing up. There's a story that the only thing the Underground of old ever cooperated with the Corps over was breaking up slave rings. But things are so much worse now." Oscar took another drink. <The way it used to be, most telepaths were enslaved by corporations looking to get an edge on the competition. Had some more disgusting stuff, of course, it's always that way with traffickers, but that was, well… it's worse now.>  
  
<Worse?>  
  
His drink over, Oscar spoke aloud. "The market's expanding. Telepaths fetch even higher prices now, all because of those… those _pendejos_ in the Eubian Concord." His thoughts added even more adjectives, all of them more terrible curses.  
  
"Eubians." Nisa thought she'd heard the term before, but she was unfamiliar with it. "The Multiverse has so many peoples. Are they Human or another species?"  
  
"Genetically altered Human, apparently, from the A5R0 universe." She sensed Oscar's mind pulling up information from a briefing. "A5R0's a weird one. Thousands of years ago, an unknown alien race relocated Humans to another planet before dying out. Those Humans eventually formed an empire, spread out into space, and then lost the empire when they couldn't keep the alien tech working. Thousands of years later they regained enough technology to become fully interstellar again. Now they've got two empires. The Skolians and the Eubians."  
  
"Now, the Eubians are top dogs, and that's bad. Even the Allied Systems are still trying to learn more about them, so I can't tell you everything, but apparently a kind of 'anti-psion' was developed from genetic alteration. They're the Aristos, and because of those alterations, every single one of the red-eyed bastards is a physiologically-hardwired sadist, with most being megalomaniacs. In the Concord, their word is law, and everyone else is a slave of some sort. Telepaths are the lowest slaves, providers, and they keep us around to torture us for pleasure."  
  
"Servants of Shaitan," Nisa murmured, shuddering at the thought. "Surely they will be fought."  
  
"Don't know. The Allied Systems are keeping a cool distance over the slavery thing, but the local Earth still has trouble accepting the existence of telepathy, and the Aristos are really good at propaganda. They disavow anyone caught in the trade and accuse their accusers of falling for Skolian propaganda."  
  
"I have heard of an increase in trafficking in telepaths back in my home universe." Old memories of Toutaine, the bitter ones, came back to her. "But there have always been issues with such things. Perhaps they are more related than anyone expects. Do you think, then, that they are behind the _Eiberhorn_ 's disappearance?"  
  
Oscar took another drink. <I hope not>, he p'cast, his thoughts blurry from the alcohol. <God I hope not.> After he swallowed and grimaced for a moment he continued speaking out loud. "I don't know. The thing is, hyperspace is a tricky place to intercept. Both our people and the Corps would get the distress call, through telepathy if anything, and a battle in hyperspace is asking for trouble. The Aristos don't have the means to do a clean hyperspace intercept. But the Corps _does._ "  
  
"Because hyperspace as used here strengthens our gifts."  
  
"Yes. The Corps could've mentally overwhelmed the crew and taken the ship."  
  
"There was no deception in their office," Nisa assured him. "I felt nothing but uncertainty and frustration. Fear and worry as well."  
  
"That just means they weren't told," Oscar pointed out. "They like to play up being the big happy family of eighteen million telepaths, but they've lied to their own before. Plenty of times."  
  
That lingering distrust came to the forefront of his mind again. "You resent them a lot."  
  
"I try not to. Most of them, Miss Tari, most of them are just trying to live. It's not easy to do that in a place where being a telepath makes you a tool and a demon." Oscar shook his head. "I hear people from your universe, they've forgotten Earth. Have you ever heard of Honduras?"  
  
"I'm afraid I have not."  
  
"It's where I'm from. La Ceiba, on the Caribbean coast." She received mental images from him of a town on a coastline, adjacent to a river flowing into the sea. "My mother, Luz, was a late manifest. My father Raoul is a mundane. I was the second of their children. When I was still little, my mother had a mindburst, and was soon identified as a P6. Fairly powerful, something like the sixtieth percentile of the entire telepath population." Oscar sipped at the drink again. "She got the usual choice. The camp, the sleepers, or the Corps. She chose the sleepers at first, because she had us little ones to raise."  
  
Nisa thought back to Julian's presentation on what the drugs were. "It was terrible to make her take that choice."  
  
"It was, but she wanted to be with her children, and the Corps wouldn't guarantee she could stay in La Ceiba." Oscar pushed the empty glass away. "My father was the one who begged her to join, in the end. He saw that she was dying a little more each week, and he wanted her to live to see us become adults."  
  
"So she did?"  
  
He nodded. "Eventually, when I was seven. The Corps assigned her to Tegucigalpa at first, the capital of Honduras, and she commuted as necessary so she could be with us. We had to move homes in La Ceiba, but Corps funding meant we had a nicer house, at least. So for the first couple of years, everything was fine." A bitter sentiment rose from within him. "But eventually they re-assigned her to one of the colonies, and to Mars, and space stations… all she could do was send us some of her stipend so we could keep the house, and only with Corps approval. We only got to see her… sometimes twice a year, sometimes more."  
  
Nisa sensed the old pain that Oscar knew as a child, of not having his mother around. Wondering where she was all the time. "You missed her terribly."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I sense she is dead. What happened?"  
  
"After the Minbari War, she was tired of being away from home. She tried to make arrangements for us to join her, but the Corps refused. Something else happened, I'm not sure, then we received messages from her that she was done with the Corps. She was going to come home and go back on the sleepers. That it was better than being kept from us."  
  
Nisa felt chilled by the decision forced on Luz Mendoza. "Surely the Corps could have afforded to relocate you. You were her family too. You and your sister were possible telepaths."  
  
"But we weren't actual manifests at the time, and that meant we weren't part of _the_ family." Oscar scoffed. "Anyway, the Corps refused to let her leave. She appealed in their administration, and they said no. My father appealed to EarthGov, but nobody in ISN or anywhere else gives a damn about Central America. He got a member of the National Congress to join the protest, but she dropped it suddenly and warned him to do the same."  
  
"But he persisted?"  
  
"We took it to the Earth Alliance Supreme Court. They started putting the case off, never deciding either way."  
  
"It was about '52 at that point. I was twenty-one, working with my father. Antoina devoted herself to the Church and joined a convent as a novitiate, so it was just us." At his silent gesture more liquor was poured. "One day after work, we got home and found her waiting. She wasn't wearing gloves or the brass pin, and we knew immediately she'd gone blip." He took another drink. "She knew they were coming. She didn't care. She shared her memories with us. Every broken promise for more time with our family. Every lecture about how her new family needed her where she was. The attempts to talk her into divorcing my father so she could marry a telepath who matched her genetically. She was fed up with them. And there was no hope…"  
  
At this point he turned his attention back to the liquor, the memories becoming too painful to speak on. Nisa sensed the rest of the story through his thoughts. They planned to flee, to head to the outer colonies, but the Bloodhounds came, as did a Psi Cop. His mother gave herself up to keep them from being arrested, and Oscar never saw her again.  
  
The rest was a blur. Moving to a sleepy village where his father's cousin, a widow, ran her late husband's store and needed help. His mindburst coming late in the evening with few people around, allowing him to acclimate without giving himself away. Exploring the contact his mother made to head out to the colonies, and ultimately, to join the Railroad section of the Underground.  
  
<Your mother is dead?>  
  
He nodded. <I got confirmation a few years ago. They said she died in a camp in Malaysia some time in '59 or '60. She kept refusing to rejoin the Corps, no matter how bad it got. I always wanted to pull a rescue mission, but never got the chance. It's so hard to get at the camps, our only successful mission in the past quarter century was with the help of Lyta's new allies, those people with that Darglan battlecruiser.>  
  
Nisa nodded. His pain over his mother reminded her of how long it'd been since she'd last seen her parents. _Are they even still alive? Did the Amir punish them?_ Her few sources insisted it hadn't happened, but she couldn't be sure. <Your father lives though?>  
  
The reply was a brief glyph of frustration. Oscar was trying, and failing, to get his father to join him on Teyan Station. But the grieving widower refused to go. He couldn't give up his home, the last thing he had from his late wife. <My sister's still in the Church. As far as I know, she's never manifested. But we can't communicate easily, for obvious reasons.>  
  
Nisa nodded. <Her safety.>  
  
Oscar nodded. <The Corps broke my family up. Oh, they insist it was only the law they're forced to follow, but nothing made them relocate my mother across the Earth Alliance for a decade. Nothing made them refuse to let her go back on the sleepers, and they could've easily arranged something to let us join her. They even promised they would, but they always found ways not to.> She saw the snarl form on his face. <Sometimes I want to punch that smug jackass Roaratanga just for the way he looks at me. And to hear him talk… he hates us for not remaining in the Corps. He considers it a duty of every telepath to stay in the Corps, give it everything we are, and breed like we're livestock.>  
  
Nisa recalled the previous night, and what she'd sensed of Markus' sentiments whenever the issue of emigrating telepaths came up. His bitter anger at the very thought of it, and the resentment that came up when the _Eiberhorn_ was mentioned.  
  
<Julian's good people, Flores and the Chens, sure. But the Corps also has more than a few Roaratangas, and I'm not even counting the likes of Alfred Bester yet.> A glyph, blurred by some inebriation, came of an old Psi Cop, soulless, an utterly brutal being who hunted without remorse and treated everything as a tool. <So yeah, I don't trust them a lot, and I'm still wondering if we're going to find out they're behind the _Eiberhorn._ For your own good, I think you should reconsider.>  
  
<I recognize your sincerity, but I have a purpose I wish to fulfill.> Nisa slid off the bar stool. <May the Merciful All-Highest grant you peace, and protect your mother's soul until you are reunited in Paradise.>  
  
He glyphed thanks to her before turning his attention to the last of his drink.  
  
  
****  
  
Nisa took a small private dinner during her second evening on Teyan Station. The day's events and the word about the _Eiberhorn_ left her appetite wanting. Her own query into the Aristos nearly eliminated it, with the one line reply from Lucy Lucero being merely " _They're the WORST_ ".  
  
Once she satisfied the needs of her body for sustenance, Nisa took to her bed. Instead of laying down she sat upright, settling her hands on her knees while keeping her feet clear so they wouldn't go to sleep on her. Once she was comfortably situated Nisa began her daily prayers. _Oh All-Highest God, Creator, Lord of Paradise, Allah, Yahwey, Isya_ …   
  
After the Prayer of Faith she went into the specific prayers. _Lord of Mercy, may your wings of love give comfort to the soul of Luz Mendoza. May Divine Peace ease the pain of her son Oscar. And may your protection go to the souls on the_ Eiberhorn _, wherever they may be._  
  
Uncertainty crept into her soul, a shadow that laid itself on her and her sense of the future. It worried her, indeed, it was frightening given how nebulous it was. She couldn't get a firm sense of what was causing it or where it came from.  
  
 _I will not fear the future. I am a Yildiz, a daughter of the Jeziri Plains, and I have faith in the All-Highest._  
  
It was with that thought in mind that she went to sleep.  
  
*****  
  
  
“Are ya daft, Markus!?” Alastair wasn’t shouting precisely, just that loud exasperation that could often be found in a bar in Belfast. “If it’s York and ya get captured, the Monitors or Thirteen’ll scan ya until ye break then they’ll reprogram and send ye back as a spy. If it’s those fookin’ monsters with the red eyes they’ll just put ya on th’ rack and twist their nipples in glee. Kinda hard ta tell what’s worse innit?”  
  
“I have to, Alastair. It’s the only way I had to demonstrate to that cowardly lickspittle that we weren’t involved. It’s not like we could tell him who’s on this station.”  
  
“I wouldn’t characterize him as co-” Markus cut him off.  
  
“He tried to sucker punch you in the back of the head because he was mad and knew he couldn’t take you in a fair fight. You should always sucker-punch your enemies, but a careful read of Sun Tzu isn’t why he did it. And it goes deeper than that. I have more respect for the god-damned terrorists. At least they stand up and fight for what they believe in, instead of cowering meekly under Kuhn’s Psi-Rating and Union guns.”   
  
“Gee Markus, tell me how ye really feel… He has a perfectly good reason ta be bitter, ye know.”  
  
Markus positively growled in frustration. “Of course he does, we all do. But ultimately he still thinks like a god-damned mundane. He’s able to release himself from the shackles they put on his mind, but he’s just unwilling. I don’t think he’d be willing to do that if we told him what they _did_ to his mother.” Markus sighed. “So I’ll go. Because I’m a P10 and willing to put myself at risk to help secure that ship, and because if I don’t and he caterwauls enough, it could endanger our position and postpone the day we build the damned guillotines.”  
  
“Markus… I don’t think we’re gonna go Robespierre on th’ mundanes. No one in the Central Committee wants tha’…”  
  
“Even Meier has a list of people who must not be permitted to survive. It is extensive. It’s just a lot shorter than Bester’s list and includes nominal trials.”  
  
“That’s a fair point.”  
  
*****  
  
The drone came through the life support umbilical from Teyan Station's main system to the _Psyche_. Its malleable memory-metal body let it shift shape once again, allowing it to slip through the vents and into the transport's own life support system, currently inactive as it was restocked with the station's own supply of atmosphere. It moved beside the vent and latched on to the interior surface.  
  
And there, it did what it was so carefully programmed to do.  
  
Wait.


	3. Chapter 3

**Act 3**  
  
The dreams came again. The desert, the Samir River, Toutaine. Home, and the terrible aftermath of Gharab.  
  
Sadiq Tari survived the slashing wound his overwhelmed daughter delivered that day. As for Nisa, her trial was only beginning.  
  
Waking was agony for her, with every moment filled with the babble of minds around her.  
  
The babble was drowned out by a firm voice, such that Nisa thought it was God Himself. <Raise walls, child! Raise them! Conceive of your mind as an abode with thick, firm walls!>  
  
Images, concepts, entered her mind, and with dawning understanding Nisa raised those walls. The babble died out, leaving her in the company of her parents, a physician, and a man in flowing dark robes with graying hair.  
  
Such was her first meeting with Abdul-Rahim al-Yasuj. He was quick and blunt in affirming the truth, that she was a psion as he was, and he would help her. At the invitation of her parents he followed them home to al-Lahir, where he took up residence and gave her daily training in the walls and the Amir's laws on their people.  
  
For a time things seemed normal, but soon she sensed the unease in her parents. Unease becoming grief, all while Abdul-Rahim kept a part of his mind closed to her, specific thoughts that her other gift told her were about her. The marriage proposals ceased abruptly as well.  
  
She truly knew something was wrong when Sadiq recovered well enough to resume training. Their cohesion was entirely shot, and their dancing steps worse than Nisa had ever seen. The latent connection between them from their divine gift was clouded by a distance her parents were imposing on her.  
  
After a week, it became enough, and she demanded answers. They refused at first, bidding her to focus on her training with Abdul-Rahim, but the sense she was getting from him was more foreboding until she declared she didn't want to be around him anymore and refused more sessions.  
  
The truth finally came one night after Abdul-Rahim left. The Taris admitted the truth. Her mind was one of the more powerful ones on Toutaine, and given her combination of the divine gifts, she'd come to the _attention_ of the Amir. Abdul-Rahim was already making the arrangements for her transfer to el-Yasuj, and the Amir's harem.  
  
In the dream she remembered the sheer bewilderment it brought her. The harem was for the Amir and his male relatives to ease their cares with the pleasures of women, hand-picked from the other communities. But it was against the teachings of the Yildiz, and the Amir's forefathers promised before God to spare their daughters the fate. How could the Amir of today violate the oath of his ancestors?  
  
"It is your gifts," Kimiya answered. "Having sons and grandsons from your blood and womb could restore the dormant psionic power of the royal bloodline."  
  
The horror of it all came quickly. All of Nisa's dreams of following her parents, of being a proud bladedancer, were to be dashed. She would be little more than a brood mare, bearing children for the Amir's family in the off chance it would restore their psionic power.  
  
"I won't!" she insisted. "I don't want to!"  
  
Even as her defiance came from her lips, though, she sensed the horrible truth from her parents. Defiance would be met with harsh punishment. The Amir would take it out on them, and al-Lahir. Their whole community, indeed, all the Yildiz of Jeziri may suffer.  
  
And so the dream led to that, the screams and shouts of her people as al-Lahir burned by the torches of the Amir's army, all for her defiance…  
  
She awoke with a start at that. For a brief moment she convinced herself it was what actually happened before her surroundings reinforced her sense of reality. _It didn't happen. Al-Lahir still stands… All-Highest, I hope so…_  
  
After rolling on her bed she realized she had a digital reader in the crook of her arm. Memory came back as she checked the contents, a public article about the Aristos in A5R0. The writer hailed from the Alliance and remarked upon affirmations by the Skolian delegation to the Alliance on the nature of the Eubians' leadership, that they enslaved telepaths to torture for pleasure. The Eubians proclaimed it propaganda and accused the Skolians of poisoning the Multiverse against them to promote Skolian "imperial ambitions".  
  
The entire condition brought nausea to Nisa. Her home universe was no stranger to horrors, given the Bragulans, the Karlacks, the Aurigans and NEUROM, or the cruel warlords and science-magi of Cevaucia with all of the ways they manipulated biology and technology into horrific forms.  
  
 _This is why we were driven from Paradise. This corruption that Shaitan has fastened to all of us, we cannot go back until it is purged._  
  
She brooded upon those feelings for a time before a check of the wall-mounted clock reminded her of the local station time. She needed to see to her morning meal and make ready for her trip. The _Psyche_ would be leaving by the afternoon.  
  
  
****  
  
Nisa was nearly to the terminals when Oscar met her. He looked somewhat better compared to the prior day. From his thoughts she gleaned why: a Gersallian destroyer with a telepathic search party trained for E5B1 hyperspace would be jumping in to help search for the _Eiberhorn_. <They can't leave hyperspace on their own, unfortunately, but they can pinpoint anything they find for others.>  
  
<That is good.> Nisa kept walking, with Oscar following, carrying her bags by the shoulder straps with one bag on her back. <You're still uncertain.>  
  
<It could still be the Corps. Director York if nothing else. You need to be careful. Even outside of York and his loyalists, there are people in the Corps who would not be above telepathic compulsion to force you to join.>  
  
Behind the walls of her mind, she thought _You judge them so harshly, though you have reason._ Even with those reasons, her own feelings told her the Corps wasn't the source of the dark uncertainty she felt.  
  
<I will be careful, and trust in the All-Highest>, she answered, hoping the p'cast reply would ease his worries. <Thank you for your kindness, Oscar Mendoza. You do important work, giving choice to those denied it.>  
  
<It's what my mother, God rest her soul, would have wanted.> He stopped. Ahead a couple of figures that included Alistair Wallace were watching a set of gates at the terminal. <It's better if I don't go beyond. Whatever you're looking for, I hope you find it.>  
  
<Thank you.> With that sentiment she continued on, joining a mixed group of adults and children waiting to board. Some of the latter were excited to be "going home" while she felt anxiety and uncertainty in a few of the adults. They were Julian's recruits, wrestling with last minute doubts before taking their final incontrovertible step.  
  
Perhaps it was those fears that brought up the pang of uncertainty that filled her. A dark shadow lay over the future. _I will not fear, I will trust in the All-Highest._   
  
She repeated that thought while boarding.  
  
  
*****  
  
Traveling through this universe's band of hyperspace was a new experience for Nisa. Here she felt like every mind aboard the _Psyche_ could connect to her own with ease. Even in sleep that connection was there, letting her sense the dreams of others such that she had no dreams of her own. She only caught glimpses of those dreams, and didn't have any firm memories of what they were, only the recollection of the other, mostly younger minds brushing against hers in the throes of sleep.  
  
But yet, she felt something more, at the fringe, that same dark uncertainty, a foreboding sense that something was wrong. An unseen hand was at play.  
  
After breakfast and some meditation to dwell on that sense, Nisa took to the common room of the _Psyche_. Holovids displayed childrens' programming for some of the passengers, watched by parents and guardians, while others used computer terminals or digital readers.  
  
Such a reader was in NIsa's hand. A text from the Gersallian Lankam, nearly 2,900 years old, yet still insightful as to the beliefs that guided those people. Their view of what Nisa felt was a divine gift had certain sentiments she found appealing, even if they failed to recognize God's hand in their powers.  
  
A curious presence brushed against the edge of her mind. She looked up at the face of a girl who shared her coloration, no older than ten, maybe younger. The girl's telepathic gift was active, as were those of the two children with her. Younger siblings or playmates, Nisa guessed. "Yes? Do you need something, little ones?" she asked.  
  
“Why are you naked?” The girl asked, the other kids hung back, wanting the answer but not being brazen enough to just approach an adult with that question. None of them wore gloves. “We need our hands uncovered so we can explore, but you’re a grown up. Why aren’t you wearing yours?” There was a hint of the accusatory, but there was an allowance for a legitimate reason, not that the little girl knew what that might be.  
  
The question took Nisa by some surprise. "Naked?" She looked down at her hand before understanding dawned. "As in, I do not wear gloves?" She asked the question with an eye toward some of the adults in the room. The warden looking over the children looked away quickly, but Nisa sensed the social discomfort within her, as if Nisa were truly standing before them utterly nude. "I suppose it is because we do not wear gloves all the time, where I come from. If we have need to protect our hands, we wear them, but we do not otherwise."  
  
That little girl, and the other even-littler ones looked at her like she’d grown a second head. “All the grown-ups in the Psi Corps wear gloves to…” she couldn’t wrap her head around what delineate meant so she tried another word “set apart public and private, self and not-self. They’re only supposed to take them off around people they really care about. So, if you don’t know that, it must mean you aren’t in the Corps, which means you’re not from the Earth Alliance. Wait, are you one of those alien telepaths? You don’t have a shaved head so you can’t be a Centauri!”  
  
"Oh, I am Human, child," Nisa said. "From a world called Toutaine, I am from the S0T5 universe, as the Alliance calls it."  
  
“Oh! Hm. Does that still count as alien?” She turned around “Mom! If she’s a human from another universe does that still make her an alien!?” The other kids were of mixed opinion. Some nodding, a couple others shook their heads.  
  
An adult, apparently the child’s mother, strode up next to her. “No Halime, I think that just makes her a Human from another universe.” She too was wearing a headscarf, just like Nisa. Nisa considered what she knew of the religions of this universe and others; there were many who followed a faith similar to the majority of worshippers on Toutaine, though not that of the Yildiz. “Şadiye Teke, this is my daughter Halime. I’m sorry if she’s bothering you, she’s always been a bit… impertinent.” Still, she couldn’t keep her eyes off _those naked hands_.  
  
That attention wasn't lost on Nisa. She searched her memories and realized what she'd overlooked, that Julian and all the others had likewise worn gloves, even at their communal meal. _That they didn't bring it up… ah, they are used to seeing telepaths without gloves._ Nisa quietly folded her arms, obscuring her hands under her elbows. "Impertinent, but at least curiously so," Nisa remarked. "God favors those who seek to learn." With her insight she turned her attention back to little Halime. "My people have some different customs from yours, Halime. I suppose I might have had the same reaction to seeing an adult going about with an uncovered head, when I was your age."  
  
“Mom wears the Hijab, I probably will too when I become an adult, but that’s optional in Islam, now. I guess it’s not where you come from?”  
  
"Among the Yildiz, all believers cover their heads," Nisa answered. "It is a show of humility to demonstrate our conviction to the All-Highest to earn Paradise."  
  
“Oh, okay. That makes sense. I guess. For us, the Hijab is about maintaining modesty - whatever that means - and demonstrating our submission to Allah, but the gloves are… well actually kind of the same, Allah just isn’t involved. For the grown ups it’s like walking around without pants.”  
  
"So it would seem. I did not know this." _It would seem I must find a pair of gloves, then._  
  
<I have a spare set, and we look like we’re the same size.> Şadiye replied to that thought.  
  
<I thank you, it would not be appropriate for a guest to offend their hosts so crudely.>  
  
Şadiye returned to where she’d been sitting earlier and got into her bag, fishing out a pair of black gloves. They were nice soft lambskin leather, but lacked the haptic interface and other features that compensated for the disability they imposed. They were spares, just in case. She returned and handed them over. Her expression might as well have been a praise unto God as Nisa put them on.  
  
<Thank you. None of us would have said anything but...well, you understand.>  
  
<I do.> She flexed her hands. They were comfortable, and reminded her of the gloves she wore while helping her mother tend to their garden back home. Given her dream there was a sting in the memory, but she didn't dwell on it given the burning curiosity she sensed from Halime. "Did you have anything else to ask, Halime?"  
  
“We mostly do arranged marriage unless someone gets lucky. How do you do marriage, do you do marriage or something else?”  
  
 _Oh All-Highest, how you do test me._ Nisa lowered her eyes for a moment, brushing past those old, dream-kindled memories. "We do have marriage," she said. "And they can be arranged, yes. The groom and bride are always consulted, so that the union's bond is more sure to hold."  
  
“Oh! That’s pretty similar to us then, but the mundanes make us do it that way. E… something genics. I can’t think of the word right now. They want strong telepaths so they make us submit to genetic testing to get married. Is someone making you do that, or do you do it on your own?”  
  
"Nothing like that, little one, not usually anyway." Nisa didn't keep the bitterness from her tone. "It can sometimes be done, by the Amir and the shaykhs of Toutaine. We Yildiz do not have a shaykh, at least."  
  
“Oh you have Nobles.” She made a fake vomiting sound. “Daddy says that’s why people built the guillotines.” That was a word she knew, and she even glyphed a mental image of a big blade sliding down a long parallel track.  
  
Nisa didn't dwell on the murderous device. "Most marriages, when arranged, are to ensure the family has the means to thrive, because of the trades of the bride and groom or the lands they may own. My parents were apprentice blade-dancers of considerable skill, so their marriage was arranged by their parents and teachers. The All-Highest blessed their union with me, and with how their skills made them renowned performers."  
  
“That doesn’t sound so bad. Mom and Daddy get along pretty well. They had me, and my older brother but he went crazy during the war and went rogue after…”  
  
“Sweety, too much information….” in a chiding tone.  
  
“Sorry mom.” Sweetly. “Mom just told me telepathically that it’s time to leave you alone. It was nice meeting you!”  
  
"And you, Halime." Nisa glyphed a farewell sentiment to the child as she and her playmates departed.  
  
****  
  
The bridge of a _Cyclops_ -class ELINT Cruiser, colloquially known as a Mothership, was old-school by most standards. Unlike most other ships in the Psi Corps fleet, there was no way to integrate artificial gravity into the command section, which wasn’t in the rotating passenger section. The artificial gravity system would actually interfere with the rotational gravity and there would be an unpleasant washing machine effect that wouldn’t do good things for the passengers. It wasn’t just linear, it was cramped, linear, and everyone was strapped into acceleration couches.  
  
Captain Anamarija Dragić was a diminutive woman, with brown hair and hazel eyes. At a rating of P5 her psionic abilities were also completely unremarkable, but she made up for that with an iron will, which by itself seemed to tower over her bridge crew. ELINT cruisers had multiple Navigators, one for each of the telescopic masts that jutted out from the ship’s forward quarter.   
  
<Surrounding hyperspace is completely vanilla, Captain. There’s nothing for lightyears in all directions.> The lead Navigator, Commander Yuki Suzuki informed her.   
  
“Copy Navigator. Anything on conventional scans?”  
  
“Nyet. All is clear. I’ve run computer diagnostic tool, just in case. Logs are clean, all systems operating in normal parameters.” Lieutenant Leonti Yakovlev, the EWO, replied. “Honestly, how do you just disappear? No distress call, nothing?”  
  
“My guess is an infiltrator. Director’s agent, slip aboard posing as a blip on the run, blitz-attack the engineering crew and pull the ship out of hyperspace before anyone can even process what’s happening. It’s how I’d do it.” Sergeant Maura Valdez replied. She was an imposing hispanic woman wearing hard-shelled armor.  
  
“Sure, but why? Someone else on board carrying secrets they couldn’t afford to get out? Just trying to destabilize our diplomacy?” The tactical officer, Anush Nazarian offered as possible answers to her own question.  
  
“Two birds, one stone?” Captain Dragić shrugged. “Ultimately comrades, the speculation does us no good. We’ll find out with more information. Sergeant, if you could go confer with our illustrious guest from Metapol? Familiarize him on our anti-boarding tactics and all that?”  
  
“Of course Ma’am. I’ll make sure he’s up to speed.” With that, Sergeant Valdez exited, hauling herself out of her acceleration couch. The ship was accelerating but the inertial dampening systems kept the subjective gravity experienced well below one gravity, and she floated without pushing herself backward toward the door, grabbed onto the bulkhead and got herself through.  
  
*****  
  
  
The time to wait was over.  
  
The lone probe in the ventilation system started moving. Or rather, parts of it did. Bit by bit the memory metal body broke itself off, forming over half a dozen portions beyond its main body. These pieces, each containing a vial of concentrated chemical, made for different sections in the highly-segmented ventilation systems on the ship to maximize the spread of their concoction.  
  
When they were in position, the main body got to work. It extended a wire from its remaining mass. This wire expanded until it became a small transceiver. The operating intelligence of the probe reached out for the ship's communications systems, and beyond, into its main computer controls.  
  
The _Psyche_ had precautions against such cyber attacks. But those precautions were geared toward specific threats, specific kinds of possible intelligences, and the guiding intelligence of the probe was something outside of their understanding. Raw processing power evaded traps laid for organic beings and their slower brains. Sophisticated thinking algorithms defeated those mechanisms to stop computer intelligences. The defenses fell in their turn in the space of microseconds. Control of several ships systems fell into the operating intelligence's metaphorical hands,  
  
It used the ship's own security against it. A lockdown procedure commenced, meant to protect against invaders taking control of the command bridge. On the bridge, the door slammed shut behind them.   
  
“What the hell? Lockdown just activated remotely!” The Bosun declared, a look of near-panic across his face. There was only one thing that could mean.  
  
“Main computer compromised, attempting to purge system!” Lt. Yakovlev announced, his fingers already dancing over the keyboard, but then he paused. “I’ve been kicked. Cannot re-authenticate.”  
  
“Yakovlev, hard-shut-down, disconnect the network” The captain ordered. As a safeguard against exactly this kind of compromise, the primary systems could all be controlled locally from their own machines.”Bosun, get on the 1MC and give the order to do a local reboot, restore from safety backups.”  
  
The Bosun flipped a toggle switch and spoke into the microphone. That’s what it was, a simple microphone and speaker system. “General Quarters, General Quarters, we have been subjected to cybernetic attack, all sections restore local control from safety backups under protocol Skynet Matrix.”  
  
Then the engine systems came to life. With scant warning the _Psyche_ 's hyperspace engine initiated. Energy surged through projectors forged of certain exotic materials, to tear open the veil separating hyperspace and real space, and shove Quantium-40 through the breach to keep the wormhole stable. The _Psyche_ entered the resulting vortex even as her command crew was reacting to the lockdown.  
  
While the ship jumped from hyperspace, the probe and its subdivided pieces opened their interior cavities up. From within came a steady stream of concentrated chemicals, an aerosolized compound that the ship's life support system started distributing with the rest of the vital atmospheric gases. Their placing ensured the substance entered the vessel's engineering and computer spaces as well as common areas and quarters, but not the command deck which due to the lockdown was operating on canned air.  
  
The solution seeped into the common room as a faint greenish hue from the vents. In her seat Nisa lowered her digital reader, her metaphysical senses keenly alerting her to a growing danger, or maybe it was a terrified call to General Quarters and the alarm klaxon that did that. She noticed the air from the vents having color, but had no idea what it meant.  
  
At least, not until one of the watchers for the children sat up. Her eyes widened in shock and panic, a familiar horror returning to the poor woman. Nisa felt a single room reverberate from her mind before it went suspiciously silent.  
  
<SLEEPERS!>  
  
The children were starting to cry already, as some among their young minds already recognized the feeling that their warden projected until her mind stopped p'casting. <Sleepers!> echoed those voices, over and over, their terror feeding into one another even as their minds ceased to broadcast their thoughts.  
  
Slowly, quietly, the greenish gas filled the common room.  
  
*****  
  
The bridge didn’t have a problem with Sleepers, because their compartment was on a completely separate and self-contained air system during lockdowns. So instead of panic, it was a quiet professional rage, affronted that someone had done this to their ship.   
  
“What systems do we still have?” The captain asked to the combined team of the Bosun and EWO.   
  
“Communication and sensors are on separate system so we can get hypercom and subspace distress calls out.”  
  
“Do it, and how long until primary systems are back up?” She asked “Helm, can you get us the hell out of here?”  
  
“Jump drive takes half an hour to reboot and recharge, we can try the warp drive but it’s a _Federation_ warp core.” The look on Lt Olayinka’s face told the story of what would happen. The prospect _terrified_ him.  
  
“And we can’t reboot the system that contains the antimatter or we go up like a gamma-ray burst Understood, Helm.”  
  
“Distress call out on loop, Captain. As for primary systems, restoring from backups is in progress, but it requires a drive reformat or we risk hostile code sticking around.”  
  
Another voice came over the 1MC, Sergeant Valdez. “Sleepers, coming in through the vents. Crew has taken countermeasures but how the hell? The computer systems I get but the life support systems aren’t compromised.”  
  
A lightbulb flashed over Lt Yakovlev’s head “It is probe. They got something onto the ship while we were docked. Tapped the network, released payload into vents. That’s why we’re unaffected on bridge.”  
  
“Got it. Prepare for boarders, find probe.”  
  
“ _Boroda Marksa!_ ” Yakovlev exclaimed angrily in Russian “Signal is jammed. Vessel dropped from Warp, cruiser-weight Solarian configuration. We’re being tractored! They’re matching rotation and extending docking tube. Bosun, alert section L-26!”  
  
The Bosun toggled the 1MC again. “Section L-26, boarding tube in your section.”  
  
The _Psyche_ was massive, and it’s internal space was equally massive, but they didn’t have to worry, necessarily, about securing the entire ship. Just the outer hull, which meant that the telepaths from the Marines and Security Division tasked with providing that security only had to worry about the surface area - at least initially - rather than the whole volume. The ship was divided into sections, from fore at A down to aft at Zed, and split into blocks of ten degrees of circumference for a total of thirty six.   
  
A squad of ten Security Division troopers were in that section, backed up by a Marine fire-team of four. One of them, Warrant Officer Reino Lehtinen stared down the barrel of his PPG carbine at a particular section of floor some twenty meters away from which a blinding-white fountain of energy and molten metal was erupting. The visor of his helmet was down and the light-filters were keeping his retinas from cooking but it was an agonizing wait.   
  
“Wait for it… wait…” The Marines were standing by with fully automatic slug-throwers and grenades. Even as they waited, Reino could feel the others converging to create defense in depth around the breach. Even if none of them made it, they could and would keep this contained. _‘This isn’t some benighted civilian freighter, this is a military vessel, let’s see how much they like Marines and naval infantry.’_ Reino thought to himself. The blinding light ceased, and the sheet of metal cut from the pressure hull was shoved inward in several pieces by robotic arms attached to the inside of the docking tube.   
  
The marines threw plasma grenades into the shaft. They exploded in brilliant blue flashes, and Reino knew from the open-shut sensation that at least some people had died. But soon heads started popping up from the opening. All hell broke loose.  
  
The first wave of attackers powered through their fire on pure durability and redundancy. When they were in a position to open fire, it was with stun weapons and sedative darts. The marines were armored against that, but Security Division wasn’t as heavily equipped. Their soft-armor was no match for either, and they fell unconscious when hit. They took some of the cybertroopers with them, but it wasn’t enough.   
  
<Fall back by twos. We’ll cover you!> One of the marines mentally shouted, chucking a grenade. It exploded, destroying or damaging some of the cybertroopers, and providing a window. Lehtinen was in the first pair, and fell back to their second position under covering fire from the marines and others. This proceeded, opening the range and keeping the boarders from being able to catch them in melee… most of the time. The last groups didn’t have the benefit of as much close-support and some of them didn’t make it.   
  
The defenders were pushed back section by section, room by room, while the boarders embarked on their terrible task. Wherever a sleeper-addled telepath was found, they were quickly placed into restraints and carried off, bound for the boarding tube and the pens awaiting them on the boarders' ship.  
  
Some victims were insensate from the sleepers. Others were less fortunate. They could feel terror over the approaching cyborgs, aliens and humans, the panic as they were overcome and restrained. Their cries and screams filled the gas-filled halls, especially those of the children being hauled off with or without their parents.  
  
The _Psyche_ bridge crew watched it all, helpless to save them, to do anything but try to regain control of their ship and save whomever they could.  
  
The wave of boarders made it to the common room. No time was wasted in going for the slumped or fallen forms of telepaths. A couple raised weapons to stun the pair of adults with enough senses to stand despite the concentrated sleepers in the air.  
  
 _SNAP-HISS_.  
  
The sound echoed through the air. From the haze of gas two brilliant blades of emerald light surged into being.  
  
Nisa emerged from the terrible haze and bolted forward. Her lightsabers buzzed in the air, reflecting away stun shots until she was upon her first foe. The Razer moved quickly, but he was not a high-end model, and she was far faster than baseline human. The lightsabers cleaved through the Razer, leaving twitching cybernetics and a dormant body in her wake.  
  
Threat assessment protocols quickly won her the attention of the others. But they were too close, and she was too fast. For those cognizant enough to watch, Nisa turned into a dynamo, a whirling form wreathed in emerald light from the speed of her weapons, her long black hair flowing wildly now that it was freed from the headscarf that covered her mouth and nose instead. They could only watch, fascinated, while she took apart their would-be captors.  
  
The last of them fell when two more Razers arrived at the door. These were larger, with more cybernetics, and each raised an arm. The nozzles at the end of each arm lit up with flame.  
  
Yet the vicious tongues of blue flame never touched her. Nisa held her arms up and crossed her weapons. Raw, invisible force met the flames, holding them well away from her and those under her protection. She threw her right arm forward, opening her hand in the same motion. One of her weapons turned into a circle of strong green light as it flew, cutting through her foes on its way back to her outstretched hand.  
  
She felt the hope around her and easily fought off the urge to breathe deeply. Only with great concentration could she maintain the force holding the tainted air from her nostrils. Without a word she advanced into the hall outside the common room. Some doors were shut. Behind them she sensed living people, frightened when any sense remained to them, others too insensate to think. The open doors had nothing.  
  
Another Razer and a squad of cybertroopers came to face her. They raised new weapons. She sensed some danger, but was still a little surprised when their fire revealed not flame or energy or even ballistics, but solid bolts that expanded into nets crackling with light.  
  
She brought her lightsabers up and started cutting through them as they came, but it was too much. Three nets fell apart before a fourth one got her from the side, enveloping her and knocking her to the floor. Her muscles tensed into solidity by the time she was down, refusing any order to move.  
  
Two of the cybertroopers swapped to conventional weapons upon approaching. She couldn't hear their electronic communication, but she sensed their intent. She was too dangerous. She was to die.  
  
Weapons fire took her would-be killers before their conventional weapons could come to bear. The automatic weapons of her rescuers quickly claimed the Razer and a third cybertrooper before the last evaded successfully, pulling back into cover and swapping weapons. It exchanged fire with her rescuers until more showed up. Its tactical systems prompted its retreat against the increased odds.  
  
Nisa felt her muscles relax. The charge in the net dissipated. With care she raised one of her weapons and cut free.  
  
A breather mask was immediately presented to her, a black face mask framed around a clear eyepiece and a red module for an air supply. She returned her weapons to the loops on her waist and pulled her scarf back over the top of her head before attaching the breather. A much-needed deep breath revitalized her.  
  
<The sleepers didn't affect you?> Valdez asked. <We have the counter-agent.>  
  
<I kept myself from breathing any in.> Nisa drew her weapons again. <I've never seen these cybernetic creatures before.>  
  
<Coserian cybertroopers. Their government rents them out to anyone willing to pay, but there's only one group we know of that hires them. We're dealing with Eubians.>  
  
The p'cast of Markus' answer was laced with a fury that Nisa felt to be almost spiritual. They were fighting not just for their people, but against a threat that struck at the core of everything they believed in.  
  
It was a sentiment she agreed with, openly so. She re-ignited her other weapon. <We must press on!>  
  
They concurred.  
  
  
****  
  
  
The Bosun, Chief Zuk, was staring at the damage control board. It went dark. No input defaulted them to black, and it was the local computer systems that reported those statuses. He simply wouldn’t know what the status of those systems were without direct reports from the crew in those sections over the 1MC. All except the reactor system, the main reactor was never networked for obvious reasons. The first report came in. “Captain, main engineering has regained control. Passing the baton to helm control.”  
  
The Helmswoman was a delicate Vietnamese woman with a masters degree in physics named Kim Nguyen. She was under her console waiting on the word from Engineering. When she got it, she simply yanked the power cable, disconnected the network cables, and flipped a switch that would use a small battery charge to completely randomize every bit of data in the solid-state memory. When that was done and after reconnecting the power cable, she hauled herself back up into her chair and flipped the power switch. Yakovlev floated a fresh-install crystal over to her, she snatched it out of the air and placed it into the boot-socket.   
  
A little icon popped up on her screen that said in a few languages “Is this a new install or repairing an old install?” She entered a new install. The screen transitioned into the Psi Corps logo for a moment and then walked her through a few options. She clicked through them on her track-pad and it asked her to authenticate her installation. She entered in her use-name and password, then a roiling sea of kaleidoscopic colors flashed on the screen. The challenge-response system. If she hadn’t been implanted with the responses to that specific color challenge, the drive would reformat. She had, and keyed in the appropriate response.   
  
_“Welcome to Helm Control.”_ The computer said in plain text. _“If you have data to transfer to this device, please insert data crystal into secondary port. If not, press Continue.”_ She did have all her hyperspace maps and maneuvering macros backed up, and she inserted that crystal. _“Processing… Processing… Processing. You now have helm control. Have a pleasant day.”_  
  
“Forward batteries have regained control. Helm has regained control. Deflector control has regained control.” The Bosun kept reporting, each system. For every section of the ship.   
  
*****  
  
The raid on the _Psyche_ was out of steam, and the boarding parties were now falling back to secure their last groups of captives. Nisa went out ahead of the others, though never too far, defending them from the weapons and darts with her blades and raw force. In turn their heavy fire kept the cybertroopers and their Razer commanders from effectively swapping to the net launchers. Some still employed flame, but it proved to be only a delaying tactic against Nisa's power.  
  
Markus and the others had the memories from Tau Atrea of other metaphysicals engaged in lightsaber combat, provided by those who witnessed the fighting or the rescue from the Aristo cruiser. But Nisa's form and movements were incomparable to those prior examples. She seemed to be dancing more than anything, twirling and spiraling around with her blades in constant motion, a graceful gyre cutting through the enemy with deadly emerald light.   
  
The final group of prisoners were being pressed into the tube when Nisa arrived with the converging security forces of the _Psyche_. She sensed a familiar presence. To her horror, Halime and a number of children were toward the rear of the line, being dragged into the tube by a cable connecting them to the others.  
  
The cybertroopers and their Razer commanders moved to block her and the rescue parties off, as if their existence mattered less than just a few more captives. And they might yet succeed in that grotesque sacrifice.  
  
Nisa rushed forward, deflecting the incoming fire and ignoring the glancing hits that she didn't have the time to deal with. She gathered her will and power until she reached the line. With one sweep of her blades, she generated a powerful arc of invisible force that threw the cyborgs back, opening the way to the line of captives. Without hesitation she tossed her lightsabers, trusting in her control and the aid of her allies.  
  
“Check your fire Marines, we’ve got civvies behind!” Valdez commanded, and they all switched to single fire. They were marines, they could hit a target with iron sights at 500 meters, precisely-aimed shots at twenty was relatively easy. The more powerful ones also started assaulting the cybertroopers with their minds, they weren’t as good at it as a pair of gestalted Psi Cops, but working together they could slow the enemy down and make shooting them easier, make their fire less accurate.  
  
The two blades scythed through the air, cutting through two cybertroopers flanking the line where it was entering the boarding tube. They curved inward, guided by her will to meet and sever the cable in different points to free the captives from one another. The blades each cut once, cut twice, and then a third time before she returned them to her hands.  
  
She did this just in time. A large Razer charged at her, carrying what looked to be a blade. Just before it could bring the blade down on her head, her lightsabers returned to her hands. She crossed her blades to catch the Razer's. "These are now Lord Yaran's property," the cyborg said in a dull tone, his English heavily accented. "You will desist."  
  
"No soul is another soul's property," she hissed in reply. "All souls are God's." With a heave of force she pushed the Razer back, freeing her from the stand off. She pivoted on her left foot, executing a slashing cut with both weapons that left two glowing gashes on the Razer before he crumbled.  
  
Nisa stood over her foe before her attention was brought by a cry. "Mom!"  
  
Ahead of her, a teary-eyed, pale Halime looked at the transport tube.  
  
Nisa felt the danger. She reached forward and pulled with her will, dragging an adult and unconscious child from the tube ending just before it could slam shut and crush them.  
  
" _Mom!_ " Halime wailed.  
  
The tube started retracting. For a moment the vacuum of the void gripped the atmosphere around them, pulling them with it towards the breach in the deck. This stopped as light flickered into being over the circle cut into the ship's surface. The _Psyche_ 's refitted systems projected an emergency forcefield to seal the breach.  
  
"No! _Mom!_ " Halime screamed. She turned her head to Nisa and the others. " _My Mom's still over there!_ "  
  
There was no hesitation. No consideration. Only an instinctive reaction from Nisa.  
  
She ran to the breach and jumped.  
  
*****  
  
On the bridge, an alarm blared with two sharp barking sounds. “Enemy vessel locking weapons.” Yakovlev informed the rest of the bridge.  
  
“Can we raise shields?” Captain Dragic asked Lt. Commander Nazarian who just got shields back up and running.   
  
“Yes captain raising them now, but they won’t hold under close-range bombardment, we’re too close for interceptors. We have weapons back, but they’re so close we can’t hit them, rotating section gets in the way.”  
  
“Damn it. Sound brace-warning.”  
  
The bosun flipped a switch and a trilling alarm blared throughout the ship, warning crew that the ship was almost certainly about to take damage and they should be prepared for impulse shock and decompression.  
  
“Captain, detecting radiation spike, ship coming out of Subspace.” Yakovlev informed her as calmly as he could. It wasn’t one of theirs.  
  
A single vessel shot into view, wreathed in radiation from subspace as it did. It was larger than either the _Psyche_ or its attacker. The vessel's layout produced a silhouette that the _Psyche_ 's systems momentarily confused for a Klingon ship, but the head was too wide and the rear engine-bearing body lacked the downward-facing nacelles of a Klingon cruiser. The vessel's coloring was primarily gray, and a big blue-white weapons port was set into the head module of the ship, dead-center while turrets were visible at various points on the hull.  
  
Before they could identify the ship, it hailed them directly. <Put them on> ordered Dragic.  
  
A male voice came over the speaker. "Psyche _, this is Captain Horner of the_ Hyperion _. Just hold tight, help's on the way._ "


	4. Chapter 4

The Aristo ship and the retracting boarding tube loomed ahead of Nisa. Her will remained focused on the ship, but inwardly she chided herself. _You have doomed yourself. You have thrown your life away thoughtlessly._  
  
It wasn't that she couldn't breathe for the moment, because she could with the breather mask. Rather, it was the thought that came to her only once she was in the void, willing herself toward the tube retracting into the attacking ship. A ship that was most certainly going to engage its drives to retreat, and would do so far more quickly than she could ever push herself to catch up.  
  
 _It is the duty of the faithful to treat their lives as the precious gifts of God_. The stern voice came to her mind from memory. _If it is to be given away, it must be done so with care and for a greater reason. Do not throw it away recklessly._  
  
Her father's voice brought her back to her final days in al-Lahir. A contingent of the Amir's household guards were coming to take her away to the soft prison of the palace harem.  
  
She was already a prisoner by then, a prisoner of fear and duty. She could not run, because nobody would hide her and risk the Amir's wrath. All the Yildiz might suffer the loss of his protection if they defied him for her sake. Those outside the Jeziri Plains would turn her over for reward, and the Desert Peoples would kill her as they did all interlopers. Her only hope of escape was death… and that was the purpose of Sadiq's words, as he knew she was considering that end, as sinful as it was.  
  
And yet… those words only made her think all the harder on death at her own hands. What kind of productive life could she lead for God if she were trapped in the harem of the Amirs for the rest of her life? A lone Yildiz among those who didn't believe in God's many names, who would treat her as a heretic and infidel for her faith?  
  
Her parents knew her thoughts. They felt her contemplations. The bonds she shared with them were too strong for it to be otherwise. She sensed their own determination to save her, whatever it might cost them.  
  
And she knew that was the reason for the extraordinary visitor who arrived at the farmhouse that bright day. Not just any visitor, but one from another star, one of another race, guided to Jeziri by his own spiritual beliefs in Creation. She remembered seeing the reptilian being with wonder and disbelief. An alien, yet she sensed his being just as she sensed any other's, and she could tell from the blank look in his quiet eyes that those eyes did not see.  
  
"I do not need these diseased orbs to see," the being said, his voice - was it a he? - a slight hiss. There was a certain electronic tone to his voice, indications of a translator device being used. "Creation provides us our own sight, Sister."  
  
"Sister?" She was stunned by the familiarity of the word. Had his translator not worked properly?  
  
"All who sense Creation are brother and sister of the soul," the alien said. "Ours is a link that transcends species, gender, faith. We are blessed and burdened by it." He bowed politely. "I am Kasszas S'srishin, Sister, and I have heard of your plight. It is clear to me that Creation has guided me here to save your life. Will you let me?"  
  
That day, she'd ultimately answered yes. And now, here she was, spiraling through the void far from any star…  
  
 _I'm sorry, my friend…_ she thought. _I have thrown it away after all_.  
  
She sensed a presence behind her. Minds touched hers. <Keep going!> Markus p'cast urgently. He was behind her, as were Valdez and a few others, using zero-G maneuvering thrusters on their power armor to gain velocity.  
  
<The ship will leave us behind!> The thought came from her mind a moment before she noticed the ribbons of blue light appear. Two in total, forming on hardware affixed to the _Psyche_ , latched onto the invaders' ship.  
  
<The tractors won't hold for long!>  
  
She did, a warm smile forming. _I judged too quickly, Lord of Justice. Forgive me my lack of faith._  
  
With a burst of will Nisa increased her velocity. With her head start included she reached the tube first. She ignited her lightsabers and drove them into the door. Her will countered the reaction of her impacting the door, keeping her from bouncing away and back into the void. She re-directed that kinetic force, using it to spin in place. The metal door burned bright orange where her lightsabers carved through it. She willed the cut door to pop open and it did. Atmospheric gas briefly surged from the opening while she scrambled into it. An airlock closed on the far side, cutting off the flow of air pushing her back against the opened door.  
  
By the time she was cutting into the next door Markus was in the tube with the others. <The tractor beam is failing, we need to get in now.>  
  
 _We will_ , she thought quietly. She finished cutting through the airlock door and opened it. <Quickly!>  
  
Her greatest concern was more decompression, but the enemy rendered that moot. There was no atmosphere on the other end, nor gravity.  
  
There were cybertroopers.  
  
She got her weapons into place just in time to stop the first shots, cleaving the stun nets in two. She kicked off the door and flew forward, using her will to control her flight through the ship's weightless interior while her sabers flashed through the air to catch more fire. Behind her the Corps Marines that followed her opened up with their weapons.  
  
As she closed the distance, a prayer formed in her mind. _Guide us, Lord of Mercy, so that the innocents here might be saved_.   
  
  
  
*****  
  
“Keep it steady Nazarian…” Captain Dragic was speaking more for her own peace of mind than to actually give a command. Nazarian was acutely aware that if she lost her grip on that cruiser and allowed it to even jolt, the boarding teams would be turned into long-pig patte. Of course that also meant they couldn’t fight back, and the enemy ship was inside their shields. So when the inevitable came, Captain Dragic wasn’t at all surprised.   
  
The Aristo's ship's weapons opened up with blazing emerald light. The cannons would have made short work of the _Psyche_ in her original construction, only the Corps' armoring of the ship saved her from a quick end. Regardless the plasma battered away at the armor, shearing some off and vaporizing other sections. From a half dozen wounds the ship's atmosphere vented.  
  
Another volley would have undoubtedly disabled the _Psyche_ 's straining tractors, but it never came. A squadron of twelve tactical fighters screamed in from the direction of the _Hyperion_. Their forward-swept wings dropped torpedoes that struck first, blowing apart the larger weapon emplacements, and further cannon fire from the twin guns mounted to each lower side of the cockpit went to work disabling more of the raider's weapons. The second volley did its work regardless, inflicting damage on _Psyche_ 's engineering section, but the Aristo ship had other priorities. She was now the underdog, and the _Hyperion_ 's fighters were only the start of her woes.  
  
Gaining the range, the _Hyperion_ 's weapon turrets lit up. Ruby energy crossed the space between the battlecruiser and the Aristo vessel, battering away at her engine spaces.  
  
“Captain, enemy vessel spinning up FTL drive.” If Yakovlev could have reached into the void of space and hated that entire ship’s crew to death, he would have.  
  
They needn't have worried. Seconds before the ship could jump out into hyperspace, the large cannon on the _Hyperion_ 's bow fired. A great bolt of cerulean fury smashed into the rear of the Aristo ship, shattering her deflectors utterly on their way to wrecking the sublight engines of the vessel.  
  
A moment of stunned silence occurred on the command deck. “Thanks _Hyperion_. When this is over, drinks are on us. Be advised, we have counter-boarding teams on that ship mounting an insane rescue operation.” Captain Dragic said when she finally dragged herself to her senses.   
  
Horner's voice came back over the line. " _We hear you,_ Psyche _. We're sending our own teams in. Stand by._ "  
  
The _Hyperion_ pulled up beside her crippled foe. From the ship's port side a tube of metal shot out and slammed into the hull of the raider.  
  
“Well… that’s one way to board a hostile ship…” Nesarian muttered. “Just… right in there, like some kind of ovipositor…” The Captain just gave her a look that could melt Europa.  
  
“Something makes me think they’re not gonna be pupating inside, Nesarian.”  
  
“No, but eating the enemy from the inside? Definitely.”  
  
  
****  
  
The rescue team moved with surprising speed through the zero-G section: Markus' squad had mag-boots for traction, Nisa her abilities to orient and move herself at will. Only the basic cybertrooper model sought to oppose them through the deep dark of the section, through which the only illumination was often the twirling lightsabers in Nisa's hand.  
  
They arrived at a thick bulkhead door leading further into the interior. <They're definitely past here> Markus p'cast. When Nisa's mind made her intentions clear, he quickly added <No, don't cut through. We don't want to push them into depressurizing the rest of the ship.>  
  
With a mind-cast command, one of the marines, Dasgupta, moved forward and got to work with an omnitool. It took a moment as he cursed at the door in some dialect of of Hindi, but he got it open.   
  
Nisa was ready for the decompression. It took much of her will to project force ahead of her, trying to create a solid wall of her own willpower, drawn from her Divine Gift, to keep the air in. There were bursts and spurts of air here and there where the wall faltered, but it held.  
  
That she survived through this was solely from Markus and the others. The moment the door opened they chucked grenades through the opening crack of the door. This thinned, but did not eliminate, the cybertroopers on the other end. The resulting firefight was fierce, but with time short the Corps Marines pushed through enough that Nisa could follow, keeping her will focused on the wall of force over the door.  
  
While the others kept shooting, Dasgupta triggered the doors again. The bulkhead closed right behind Nisa, regaining its atmospheric seal.  
  
While the effort took a lot of her energy, Nisa pushed away her growing fatigue and launched herself forward just as a reinforcing squad of cybertroopers arrived. Her weapons rejoined the battle just in time to keep them from overwhelming Markus' squad. She loosed the lightsaber in her right hand again, sending it spinning through the corridor junction to slice apart enemies while her left hand weapon deflected their fire with inhuman accuracy.  
  
<Things are too easy> Markus p'cast. <They didn't take that many casualties boarding the _Psyche_.>  
  
<I sense some danger ahead.> Nisa felt the other presences as well. Minds, souls, full of terror and despair. <The people they took are near.>  
  
<Then let's keep moving!>  
  
Nisa's senses led through the halls of the ship. They made short work of a couple of cybertroopers that tried to bar their way at one set of the doors, which quickly yielded to Nisa's weapons. They plunged into a darkened room full of panicking, despairing minds.  
  
The lights flashed on, nearly blinding Nisa with their intensity for a moment. She raised an arm to ward the light slightly.  
  
The chamber was at least three decks high. On all sides were alcoves… no, cells, cells with solid forcefields covering them and little room permitted for anything but standing or slumping in place. Some of the cells were empty.  
  
Only some.  
  
The others had people in them. Most were or at least looked Human, but there were aliens as well.  
  
"I can feel them," Valdez whispered aloud. "They're all telepaths. _So many…_ "  
  
Everyone's attention was coming on the center of the chamber. There were at least a dozen cybertroopers and a Human cyborg, a Razer, standing in a protective line with deflector shield projectors around them. Behind them was a man with alabaster skin and red eyes, dressed in what looked like regal finery of white and blue.  
  
Nisa felt pain in her mind, a pressure that emanated from the red-eyed man. She sensed the others felt the same, and the sheer, raw spiritual _hate_ that it engendered told her what she was facing: an Aristo.  
  
A pleased smile showed on the man's face, as if the slight pain was giving him a moment's pleasure… which, Nisa soon realized, it was. "I am Lord Yaran," he said in a pronounced accent. "And I admit, the sheer gall of you psions never ceases to amaze me. You may well be worse than _Skolians_. But your fight is over. Surrender now or I execute those I took from your ship.  
  
Beside him, one of his Razers held a weapon up toward the side of the room. Nisa felt more than saw his targets: the telepaths taken from the _Psyche_. Men, women, and children, all helpless.  
  
Including Şadiye.  
  
  
*****  
  
“Chief, still waiting on that damage report…” Dragic was not happy that her damage control teams hadn’t gotten back to their CO yet.  
  
“I know, I know. But it’s a bit chaotic down there, between the cybertroopers and decompression. The reports are coming in now. We have hull breaches in J-24, P-23, C-28, explosive decompression and damage from impulse shock radiates outward. We’ll have to send out EVA teams to inspect the damage to the armor in areas that didn’t breach. However, all systems are operational and ready for action.”  
  
Then a chiming sound hit hit Yakovlev’s console. “Captain, incoming ship. Not ours, profile suggests battlecruiser.”  
  
A crash of radiation rippled through nearby space. In the heart of it, a large warship dropped its warp field. It was colored a deep, dark gunmetal gray, a long, slanted hull shape with two warp nacelles along the lower hull. The ramscoops at the front were a bright blue while the nacelle field generators were a long line of blood red. Several missile and turreted emplacements covered the ship's hull, as did three great cannon mounts on the bow. Only two insignia showed on the hull; twin lightning bolts of white color, and the more infamous insignia: a red square under a white disc, and in the heart of the disc, the notorious _Hakenkreuz_ of the Nazi German Reich.  
  
“ _Jebat moi lisiy cherep_ , _Lutzow_ -class battlecruiser!” The Russian was not happy about this development at all.  
  
The newcomers lived up to their reputation. No offer of surrender was given, no sign of potential mercy. The main bow cannons fired on the _Hyperion_ , spearing the Terran battlecruiser's deflectors with three thick disruptor beams of vicious emerald. Her other weapons fired as well, strafing the _Psyche_ and _Hyperion_ both with further disruptor bolts, while missiles erupted from her launchers to streak in on the _Hyperion_. The _Hyperion_ 's point-defenses returned fire, as did her main turrets, while the _Psyche_ was left to deal with the barrage from the SS Exile ship's lighter batteries. The _Hyperion_ 's tactical fighters flew in on strafing runs, requiring them to power their way through the vessel's anti-fighter batteries. Bolts of emerald light hit most, and three blew apart from direct hits.  
  
The _Psyche_ shuddered under the impact, but it was different. Momentum transfer rather than a sonic boom propagating through the ship’s structural members.   
  
“Shields holding, interceptors aren’t efficient against their beams. Switching to take out missiles.” Nesarian informed the captain, she didn’t need direct micromanagement to do her job. “Returning fire.” She didn’t have direct control over each of her ship’s weapons, but the local gunners did. They swivelled their guns around on the targeting solution she’d plotted, made small adjustments for the exact position of their respective guns, and opened fire. Most of her guns were dual-purpose plasma pulse cannons. The lighter batteries fired bolts of superheated Krypton plasma with the cyclic rate of a machine gun, while the few heavy batteries she possessed were more stately, and were firing several metric tonnes of compressed and superheated Helium per shot. Not enough against a battlecruiser’s shields, even if she was putting megatons of TNT into her every second. Not given the time they had before their own shields were ripped apart.   
  
“Helm, sound acceleration. Go to full military thrust and bring our particle beams to bear on those _fucking_ Nazis.” She’d always wanted to say that. Lt Olayinka did exactly as he was told. An alarm sounded throughout the ship, and everyone got into acceleration couches that were built into the walls like murphy beds. Even with inertial dampening in the rotating section, they’d still experience enough G forces to send them tumbling if they didn’t secure themselves. The _Psyche_ accelerated, trying to draw fire away from the immobile _Hyperion_ , then swung around on her own axis will still translating sideways, and raked a pair of brilliant red-orange Helium-based particle beams along the battlecruiser’s shields.  
  
“The shields flickered a bit…” Nesarian noted ruefully. Her ship was technically a cruiser. But as an ELINT cruiser, it wasn’t designed for direct heavy combat. Against a battlecruiser she might as well have been using an angry flashlight. Oh sure, she could devastate an unshielded city, and if the shields were down on that thing she could do damage… but older-model Earth Force particle beams were not designed with shielded battlecruisers in mind.   
  
“Incoming hyperspace vortex.” Yakovlev informed the bridge. “Friendly… It’s the _Jörmundandr_!” The sickly-yellow hole in space time disgorged a vessel just shy of a kilometer in length, but bristling with weapons. The _Hyperion_ -class heavy cruiser’s medium plasma pulse cannons and interceptor arrays dotting her massive almost submarine-like spaceframe, while her prow sported a pair of massive spinal-mounted twin heavy plasma cannons and two turreted heavy particle beams on the port and starboard aspects.   
  
There were no transmissions initially, she simply oriented toward the battlecruiser and opened fire with everything she had. Particle beams and plasma lanced through the vacuum of space, while a pair of torpedoes went loose from their forward tubes, and immediately split into two-dozen independent-tracking sub-munitions, each one a multi-megaton Teller-Ulam configuration fission-fusion anti-ship missile.  
  
Ruby light met this onslaught, the battlecruiser's deflectors absorbing the cruiser's fury with some, if not total, ease. Heavy disruptor emplacements shifted, the _Lutzow_ -class ship's tactical officer deciding _Jörmundandr_ was enough of a danger to warrant some attention even as his ship's main weapons continued to batter at the battlecruiser _Hyperion_.  
  
The _Jörmundandr_ weathered the onslaught as their shields flashed into corporeality to block the hits, re-radiating the energy back out into the void. Interceptors did have a setting for beams and they used it, de-collimating the disruptors slightly and spreading the impact over a larger area of the shield. It was better for enhancing armor, but it did mean they had less shield bleed-through. Still, it taxed a power system that hadn’t been designed to handle shields fiercely.   
  
Outnumbered three to one, the SS Exile ship continued to direct most of its fury on its most dangerous opponent, taking advantage of _Hyperion_ 's boarding mission to repeatedly strike at her heavy deflectors. Only the Terran ship's immense power reserves, and the ingenuity of her engineering team, allowed her to endure these attacks. _Psyche_ and _Jörmundandr_ were not ignored, the lighter batteries on the SS ship occasionally sending fire _Psyche_ 's way while her other weapons continued to engage _Jörmundandr_. Missiles with anti-matter warheads hunted the Psi Corps cruiser relentlessly, their impulse rockets giving them the acceleration to push the ship's interceptor grid to its very limit.  
  
Captain Dragic got on the comms. “ _Psyche_ Actual to _Jörmundandr._ ”  
  
“Jörmundandr _Actual. A pleasure to see you Dragic, though I’d prefer under better circumstances_.” The heavy cruiser’s commanding officer was a very large Samoan woman who almost looked like she was standing at her duty station, but really it was because she was two meters tall and of a large frame. Not fat, oh no. She was just big.   
  
“The same, Semu. We’ve counter-boarded that raider, the _Hyperion_ will be extracting our people and theirs. We have to keep them alive.”  
  
“ _Understood. We’re launching fighters. I don’t think we can beat it, but we can and must delay it._ ” She didn’t specify why.  
  
Six modified Badger-Class starfuries emerged from the cruiser’s small hangar bay. The rear gunner’s position had been removed, replaced with an additional powerplant and a shield generator. They dove in, adding their firepower - and anti-ship missiles - to the _Hyperion_ ’s assault craft.  
  
The SS ship refused to be distracted. Their spinal mount super-disruptors again hammered _Hyperion_ 's shields, while the ship kept itself out of the bow arc of _Hyperion_ 's own bow-mounted cannon. So long as _Hyperion_ had to remain fixed to the raider, the enemy ship had the advantage. Everything would depend on when she could free herself from her duties to the boarding teams.  
  
  
  
*****  
  
  
The pens on the raider ship remained utterly silent in the face of the standoff. Markus stepped up beside Nisa, his battle rifle still up and pointed squarely in the Aristo's direction. Around him another squad of cybertroopers arrived.  
  
"Surrender, psions, or those you've come to save will die," Lord Yaran demanded.  
  
"Bull," Markus retorted. "You're bluffing. You consider us merchandise, you won't kill us."  
  
"Good businessmen know when to cut their losses, psion," Yaran replied. "Your kind don't seem to grasp the same principles, given this foolhardy invasion of my ship."  
  
Nisa felt a deeper emotion stirring in Yaran, a bitter hatred towards them that he was barely holding in check. "I feel your hatred. It is why you would kill so many of those you wish to sell."  
  
Yaran's red eyes shot daggers at her. "Your existence is a mockery of your only proper purpose, providing the transcendence that glorifies us. If I hate you, it is the hatred of _disgust_ that so many of you dare to live another existence. Indeed, this Multiverse is imbalanced by the number of psions that infest it. Your numbers must be reduced to a more manageable level. So I would rather kill nine out of ten of you here than bring half of you back as providers."  
  
Nisa felt a collective vote take place behind her, a question and a number of affirmatives. "We're not surrendering. Better to die on our feet than live as slaves!" It was one of the Marines in the back who actually spoke, LCpl Dasgupta.  
  
Nisa kept her lightsabers level and focused her power. If she could but impact that Razer in the opening strike, perhaps it would spare innocent lives.  
  
Yaran's right hand went to a gauntlet wrapped around his left wrist and forearm. His fingers tapped a couple of keys before holding one down.  
  
Raw pain battered at Nisa's mental walls, nearly breaking through from the sheer volume of it. In over half of the occupied alcoves, the prisoners within keeled over. Their screams echoed through the chamber. Through her very soul she felt the agony filling the very skin of the victims.  
  
The marines recoiled. They kept their combat posture through sheer force of will but they shook and gritted their teeth, stifling screams and unable to focus on actually killing their enemies.  
  
In direct contrast to their reaction was that of Yaran's. His earlier, angry glare disappeared, replaced by a lazy smile, and his eyelids fluttered. Nisa felt the euphoria seizing him, an even greater distraction to him than she felt at the pain coming from those alcoves.  
  
"Take them," Yaran moaned. "Take-"  
  
A rumble filled the deck, hinting at a nearby blast of some sort.  
  
< _NOW!_ >  
  
The prisoners from the _Psyche_ lashed out as one mind, one purpose, striking the mind of the Razer holding a weapon on them. As it was there was little there they could work with, but the gestalt recognized (indeed, anticipated) that the motor control centers were vulnerable. Under their control the Razer turned and shot his counterpart from behind.  
  
The cybertroopers registered the attack and turned toward the now-hostile Razer. Yaran managed a half-choked shriek of "Shoot the psions!", but it was too late to keep the cybertroopers from mowing the Razer down. "No you damned alien machines, _kill the psions!_ "  
  
Nisa launched herself at the enemy cyborgs while the Corps marines latched onto the euphoria and used it to dull their own pain like it was morphine, then opened fire. The cybertroopers' threat assessment protocols registered them as greater tactical threats than the telepaths still chained behind them. They returned their attention forward.  
  
Nisa got into their formation first, using her will to knock away some of their protective deflector generators that were in her way. For the prisoners in that place she turned into a cyclone of emerald light, every moment full of the poise and grace befitting a dancer, every strike of her weapons cleaving through the enemy.  
  
" _Kill them!_ " Yaran shrieked, while his hand desperately scrambled for his gauntlet. The euphoria of transcendence, once a blessing, was now a terrible hindrance. "More troops! I want more troops!" He started stumbling away.  
  
The gestalt turned on him. It was excruciating to the group to openly touch his mind, as if they were dipping their minds in lava. They persisted against the pain, which only distracted him more, providing them the opening to overwhelm his mental defenses.  
  
In the chaos of the unfolding battle Nisa nearly failed to notice the opening door on the opposite end of the chamber, realizing it only once the enemy was coming through. More cybertroopers came through, attended by a Razer, and she steeled herself to deal with these reinforcements.  
  
It was then she noticed that they were turned _away_ from her, toward the door, as they opened fire.  
  
Whatever they were firing at didn't seem to go down. An object flew through the door and landed in their midst, a cylinder of some sort. It exploded with fury, creating a cloud of shrapnel that grievously wounded the Razer and destroyed two of the cybertroopers.  
  
The slackening of fire allowed their foes to force the door. Like the Corps Marines these were clad in human-shaped power-armor, but it was bulkier than the Corps models, with golden faceplates forbidding any view of their faces. Their raised weapons filled the room with the thunder of ballistic weaponry, weaponry that tore cybertroopers apart when they managed hits.  
  
After two of these blue-armored soldiers came a third. The armor was the same, but the color was black, and a white insignia of some sort was set on the bulbous right shoulder plate. The gold faceplate was likewise marked with the likeness of a human skull's face. The figure moved out ahead, weapon raised, and a drawled voice rang out with the electronic tinge of a loudspeaker. "Check your targets, boys, we've got friendlies."  
  
The Marines were still keyed up and there was almost a friendly-fire incident when they turned to face the new power-armor-clad mundanes, but between Markus and Valdez they managed to keep fire-discipline long enough to process what was going on.  
  
"They are allies!" Nisa reassured them, sensing the intent of the newcomers even if she was not witnessing them firing on the cybertroopers. Their armor absorbed the plasma weapons of said troopers, at least for a hit or two. One of the blue armored figures went down with multiple plasma shots to the torso. The man in black armor avenged his fallen comrade by gunning down his adversary.  
  
Through it all, the pain of those in the pens continued. Nisa glyphed her intentions toward Markus and his people while slicing through one of the last cybertroopers. While they finished the others off, she rushed to Lord Yaran. His carnelian eyes were glazed over in ecstasy through which mortal dread was fighting to get through. She leaned down and reached for the control. When it didn't respond to her touch she frowned. "Turn it off!"  
  
"No," he rasped. "The transcendence… I have never felt it such. So much… oh so much…"  
  
Nisa gathered her will and projected it at the man. " _You will turn it off!_ "  
  
With his will disrupted by the euphoria sweeping his brain, it failed before her own. His right hand jerked slightly while reaching for his left forearm, but his fingers still found the controls.  
  
The pain ceased. Only the shadow of it remained on those tortured minds. Their bodies gasped for air, but it was their minds that were the most afflicted.  
  
Frustration turned to hate on Yaran's face. "Filthy psion bitch," he rasped. She sensed the rage in his mind. _How dare you defy me! How dare you oppose an Aristo of Eube!_ Aloud he shrieked, "Final stand protocol!"  
  
His death came a moment later. Two shots, from opposite sides of the room, found him. One pulped his head, the other ripped through his chest. Yaran slumped to the floor while the Door claimed him. _To the Abyss with you, spawn of Shaitan_ , Nisa thought.  
  
The executioners walked toward her. Vicious satisfaction showed on Markus' face. Behind him the other Corps Marines were tending to one of their own, fallen in the fight, while Dasgupta worked on freeing the captives.  
  
The black-armored figure lowered his weapon on approach. Within a few paces the gold faceplate lifted in a hiss of air. This revealed the worn face of the occupant, a man of swarthy, Caucasian complexion with dark hair and goatee fringed with gray. His light brown eyes were already marked with crows' feet, reflecting the weight on his soul.  
  
Sensing Markus' uncertainty, Nisa spoke first. "I am Nisa Tari, a Yildiz of Toutaine. This is Markus Roaratanga of the Psi Corps."  
  
"So I reckoned." The man's accent reminded Nisa of a drawl sometimes heard from certain sectors of Solaris. "I'm Jim Raynor, of Raynor's Raiders." He cast his eyes on the pens, some already starting to open. A hard look came to them. "We'll get you folks to safety on my ship. I've got boarding teams holding the way open."  
  
“I’m not one to look gift heavy infantry in the mouth.” Markus replied, nodding.   
  
"I wonder what he meant by 'final stand protocol'?" Nisa asked aloud.  
  
"The cybertroopers will self-destruct themselves upon vital damage," Valdez replied. "Like they did on the _Zhang Qian_."  
  
"I'll warn my teams to keep them well away," Raynor said. "Thanks for that." A light came up inside his helmet, reflecting off the right cheek. "What is it, Matt?"  
  
" _You'd better hurry up in there, sir_ ," Horner answered. " _We're taking a pounding out here. Swann's doing all he can with this tech, but we're going to lose shields if we can't start maneuvering soon._ "  
  
"You hold tight, we're almost done." Raynorr lifted his head. "Alright, boys, double time it! Get these people out of here and back to the _Hyperion!_ "  
  
  
****  
  
Another blast from the SS battlecruiser struck the _Hyperion_ directly. Her deflectors flickered weakly, though they held, while on the command bridge the display of the ship showed the deflector icon turning orange. Matt Horner stood at the central table, using its holographic display systems to project a view of the fight. The enemy battlecruiser was maneuvering only as needed to keep themselves out of his bow arc. Beams and missiles met the attacks of the _PCS Jörmundandr_ , whittling away that vessel's deflectors as well while her own attacks, pressed as they were, failed to distract the enemy cruiser.  
  
" _Hey, is our fearless leader done on that tub yet?!_ " asked Rory Swann. The rough-voiced engineer of the _Hyperion_ appeared briefly on a side display, courtesy of his own engineering suit. The metal clamp he had for a hand was holding wiring together, showing he was in the middle of a repair. " _These Ferengi deflectors aren't bad, but they're not going to hold much longer._ "  
  
"Jim's getting the prisoners out now, we just need the deflectors up a little longer. See what you can do."  
  
" _Don't I always?_ " Swann scoffed. His image disappeared.  
  
Horner turned his attention back to the holo-display. The tactical situation was negative, but perhaps there was a way to buy time. _We might shear off the tube if we try anything with the main engines… unless…_ He looked up. "Helm, fire the ventral maneuvering rockets. Get us and the raider we're tied to into a spin."  
  
"Yes sir."  
  
 _Let's see if this works…_  
  
  
*****  
  
“Captain, the _Hyperion_ is firing thrusters. Looks like they’re trying to use that raider’s hull as a pavice, but they don’t have a fulcrum.” Yakovlev informed her. An idea was forming in his head, which he projected over to the Helm and Tactical officers.   
  
“I like where your head’s at. Proceed.” Dragic replied with a little grin. The two other officers nodded and got to work. The _Psyche_ wasn’t very well-armed, but she was a big girl, which meant she could throw that weight around. She went through a parabolic arc and reached out with her tractor beams, grabbing hold of the raider the Hyperion was attached to, and provided the necessary thrust, flipping both ships around like turning a pancake, and putting the raider in the SS Battlecruiser’s line of fire.   
  
The SS Exile ship responded by maneuvering. For its size it was agile… but only for its size, and with the _Psyche_ covered by the _Jörmundandr_ , they couldn't stop the maneuver from taking place.  
  
Precious time was bought. The only question was if it was enough.  
  
****  
  
In the pen chamber Nisa watched with Markus' team as their wounded comrade was carried away on an anti-grav stretcher. A man and a woman clad in white body armor provided ongoing medical support to the wounded Marine, just as they did for Raynor's wounded man. "Time to get out of here," he said.  
  
"We'll take up the rear," Markus insisted. "Just get our people off."  
  
"I'll be right beside you."  
  
There was no time to answer Raynor's pledge. From the far door, the very same one Nisa and the Corps team came through from the start, cybertroopers began filtering in. The cyborg aliens were aggressive beyond reason, charging ahead while firing.  
  
Nisa already had her weapons up. Her blades danced in the air to deflect the oncoming fire, much of which was focused on her. "Go!" she cried.  
  
"Steady fire, boys, don't let 'em get close!" Raynor lifted his rifle, as did his remaining men and Markus' team. The thunder of Raynor's battle rifle was particularly loud in the space, such that Nisa's ears rang painfully from the experience. She pushed away that pain and focused on defending them from the hostile plasma fire.  
  
At first fallen enemies remained where they went down. Nisa felt the danger when the foe nearest her went down by itself. She projected her will into force just in time. The creature immolated itself, creating a ferocious blast wave that she struggled to hold back. The strain brought her to a knee.  
  
<We need to go!> Markus gunned down a cybertrooper trying to aim at her while she recovered.  
  
Nisa nodded. <We do. A moment.> She closed her eyes and focused. _All-Highest, give me the strength to protect._ She reached into the power she felt around her, that wellspring of life through which she felt the presence of God. She took more of it than she'd ever tried before. In one great heave of will, she projected that power forward. A wave of invisible force toppled every cybertrooper still active. It hit with such power that two outright exploded in mid-air, their self-destruct protocols triggered by crippling damage.  
  
Their destruction created a chain reaction as the resulting damage triggered the self-destructs on more of the cybertroopers. Their immolation in turn damaged more, until the entire far side of the chamber was a ruined mess.  
  
Nisa struggled to her feet. She felt more tired than she'd ever felt in her life. Her very being was utterly spent.  
  
<You can do this.> The cast wasn't just from Markus but all of the others, acting as one. A flood of warm feelings rippled through her mind, gratitude and camaraderie and familial pride. The weariness subsided slightly. <We wouldn't have gotten this far without you.>  
  
"Nice work," Raynor commented. "Now let's get going."  
  
"Let us go, yes," Nisa agreed. She followed him from the room, weapons readied, while every passing moment her strength returned to her.  
  
She needed it. The thunder of the Raiders' rifles filled the corridors beyond. They came up to an interlinking corridor where members of the crew, all cyborgs, were fighting alongside the cybertroopers. The latter pushed aggressively, looking to close and detonate themselves. Nisa stopped one from getting within blast range with a push of her will, after which she threw her left hand's lightsaber forward. Her will guided it to cleave through the cybertrooper and come back. She got it to her hand just as the cybertrooper blew up.  
  
"Move on, boys, we'll cover you!" Raynor called out.  
  
"Yes sir! Move move move!" Another voice, with a similar drawl, cried out the order, and the blue-armored soldiers retreated.  
  
This became the pattern. Section by section, the incursion of Raynor's Raiders onto the ship fell back to their boarding point under the fire of what seemed to be the entire crew. Nisa felt no other intelligences with them: Lord Yaran was the only one of his kind aboard, and his servitors were determined to avenge his death with their own loss if necessary.  
  
They fought back with plasma guns, pistols, and flamethrowers, and Nisa kept herself at the rear. Instinctive insight guided her blades to deflect the worst fire, which did not save her from the occasional stinging glancing shot or errand flame from an enemy that drew too close. Ultimately such foes were dispatched by Markus or Raynor, who remained at her side throughout the fight to ensure she could pull back with them. Their fire made sure the cybertroopers couldn't get close enough to harm her with their self-detonations.  
  
Nisa felt the boarding tube's presence before she saw it. The jubilation of the freed prisoners and their protectors made it impossible to miss. She kept backing up while the fire behind her was more and more concentrated. Finally her feet stepped back and up onto a plate of light gray, distinctly different from the deckplate of the Aristo ship.  
  
The cybertroopers ahead exploited the reduced fire. They charged _en masse_ , as if to force their way onto Raynor's ship.  
  
Before they could, the tube snapped shut. She felt the plate shift under her feet as it retracted back into the _Hyperion._ "We made it," she murmured.  
  
"We're close, but not out of the woods yet." Raynor triggered his suit's communication system. "Matt, what's the situation?"  
  
" _Not good, sir, you got out just in the nick of time._.."  
  
The entire ship shuddered beneath their feet, knocking several people over.  
  
" _I'll call you when we're clear. Horner out._ "  
  
"Do you need to get to your bridge, Raynor?" Markus asked.  
  
"Drivin' the ship isn't my specialty, Commander," Raynor answered. "That's where Matt comes in. Let's see to our people and trust him to finish this."  
  
  
****  
  
Three emerald beams of deadly disruptor energy lashed across the _Hyperion_ 's side as she maneuvered away from the Aristo ship. Two of them struck home, degrading the shields to the point of collapse. The enemy battlecruiser maneuvered to keep her bow on _Hyperion_ and maintain her deadly bombardment.  
  
On the _Hyperion_ bridge Horner kept his feet solid at his command table. The holographic display showed the locations of each ship in the fray. The _Psyche_ was throwing everything she could into maneuver given her depleted shields while the Jörmundandr came about to present regenerated shields toward the SS Exile battlecruiser.  
  
" _Hey, we need to get this tub movin'!_ " Swann's voice protested over the ship's comms. " _These deflectors are goin' out, there's nothin' more I can do to keep them up!_ "  
  
"I hear you, Swann, we're maneuvering now. Helm, change orientation twenty-five degrees port. All guns on that SS ship _now_."  
  
"Aye sir!"  
  
The _Hyperion_ turned toward her tormentor, freed from other duties and now ready to fight in earnest. Steady streams of crimson bolts from her turrets peppered the ruby light surrounding the SS ship. The enemy vessel was maneuvering with them, trying to line up their bow and the spinal disruptors mounted there on the _Hyperion_.  
  
Which was the same thing Horner wanted.  
  
The two ships' bows soon faced one another. The disruptors on the SS ship fired. Their beams sliced into the head and sides of the _Hyperion_ , blowing down her weakened shields and drilling holes into her hull.  
  
"Yamato cannon charged!" called out the gunnery officer, Semmes.  
  
"Sustained fire, now!"  
  
At Horner's command the bow cannon on the _Hyperion_ lit up and let off a powerful burst of sapphire energy. It struck the bow shields of the SS ship dead-on, causing them to crackle and waver. The full firepower of the Raiders' flagship came to bear on the weakening shields.  
  
While this alone might not have been enough, they had immediate aid. The _Jörmundandr_ maneuvered into place and let fly with a spread of missiles joined by pulse cannon fire and particle beams. Their weapons hit home as well, straining the enemy shields to the breaking point.  
  
The _Hyperion_ 's bow cannon tipped them over. The next burst of energy broke through the flickering ruby light and crashed into the spinal weapon mounts on the _Lutzow_ -class ship. The direct hit not only wrecked the weapons, it prompted a deadly backlash of energy from the charged capacitors, which vented the SS ship's fury back on itself. The swastika insignia on the bow was blown away by an internal explosion, as was much of that section of the ship.  
  
"Captain Horner, gravitational distortion! Looks like a local hyperspace jump point is forming!"  
  
Horner sighed in mingled hope and worry. "Let's hope it's the cavalry."  
  
The jump point opened, and emerging from the vortex was a multi-kilometer behemoth of a ship that looked like a long angular love-child between a lozenge and a brick, that bristled with weapons. A voice came over the comms that had everyone on the _Psyche_ cheering.  
  
“ _This is_ Sandoval Bey _actual to all friendly ships: hold on to your hats_.”  
  
The two titanic pods on her sides were apparently missile racks, and those ripple-fired. Heavy plasma pulse cannons and railguns in turrets dotting her hull also opened up in a time-on-target barrage against the Battlecruiser’s shields with enough firepower to turn Libya into a mirror. The interaction with those shields was impossible to see because it momentarily blinded sensors to say nothing of the eye. However, as those weapons cycled, the SS Battlecruiser still existed; but they were not the only weapons the _Sandoval_ Bey possessed. A pair of spinal mounted blue-white energy weapons emerging from her armored prow let loose. The shields still existed for a fraction of a second before they completely collapsed, and the SS battlecruiser was laid bare and naked before them, to be speared through and through. Things that should not be fusion fuel became fusion fuel in those few picoseconds, and it was impossible to tell whether the resulting breakup and series of explosions was due to the weapon’s energy propagating through the structure, or due to the results of a few shakes of Teller’s alarm clock.  
  
Horner watched the enemy ship break up and breathed a sigh of relief. "Stand down from general quarters. Looks like we're in the clear, everyone. Good job."


	5. Chapter 5

At Raynor's invitation, Markus joined him on the _Hyperion_ bridge. Various stations were assembled around a holo-table while a viewing port showed the swirling red and black of empty hyperspace. Over the holotable a flat image showed Commodore Rhee, Captain Dravic, and Captain Semu. Raynor approached Horner. "What's our status, Matt?"  
  
Horner spoke up without consulting a list. "Our warp jump system's still offline. Swann figures we'll need some yard time to finish patching it up. We took casualties on several decks and lost half of the fighters to that exile battlecruiser." Horner presented the report with professional exactness, but the weight of loss was there.  
  
" _We can provide a yard space for your ship, Commander Raynor_ ," Rhee said.  
  
"If you folks have the space in whatever yards you've got, we'd be happy to accept."  
  
"What were you doing in this area of space anyway?" Markus asked. "It's not along any of the major trading routes in realspace or hyperspace."  
  
"Truth is, we were looking for a way to contact you." Raynor allowed himself a little half-smile. "A… mutual acquaintance of ours in the Alliance gave me the notion you might be interested in something we're setting up. Told me to get ahold of Dr. Colin Meier or Mister Gene Hendricks, if I could, and state my case. He knows 'em personally."  
  
“Well…” Commodore Rhee replied a bit pensively. “There shouldn’t be any impediments to that in principle. But they are also ridiculously busy. On the other hand they are not the only people in our little shadow government. We’ll make it work.”  
  
  
*****  
  
The Raiders' medical staff tended to Nisa's injuries and wounds. At her request for something to drink she was sent to the ship's cantina. It was a grungy looking place, with a bar beside the entrance wall and a large collection of viewscreens above the central table. To her surprise a machine she recognized from Solaris, called a "juke box", flashed its many colors in tune with a guitar and a male singer calling out "Sweet Home Alabama". In another far corner a game machine of some kind depicted ships in space. A holographic woman in skimpy, revealing clothing danced suggestively over a projector on the upper floor. Several chairs were taken up by crew members.  
  
"Hey miss." The man behind the bar motioned to her. "What'll you have?"  
  
She picked out a food that seemed properly _kosyer_ from a list of his available servings. As for the drink, she made her requirements clear with a firm "Something without alcohol". Soon she had a sandwich of sliced turkey and a glass of fruit juice of some sort, which she took to the central table.  
  
She had time to finish the sandwich before she was approached. Commander Raynor was out of his battle armor, wearing a white short-sleeved shirt under a gray vest and dark leggings. His arms had tough, corded muscle, fit for a man used to fighting and activity. He placed a bottle of brown fluid and an empty glass on the table and took the other seat. "So, Miss Tari. Good to see you on your feet."  
  
"Thank you, Commander." She took another drink while he poured his own. The smell confirmed her suspicion that it was alcohol. "Thank you for aiding us."  
  
"You're welcome. Thanks for helping us get out of there. I'd have lost more of my people fighting off those exploding cyborgs." Raynor took a small drink. "You try Cooper's mai tai yet? Best in the sector back home."  
  
"No. I… my faith forbids alcohol, Commander."  
  
That elicited a chuckle from the man. "Well, that faith asks an awful lot of you then."  
  
"It is a corruptor and a crutch according to our tradition and writings," she continued. "To be worthy of Paradise requires us to be clear-headed and in control of ourselves."  
  
"Does it then?" He sipped at his own again. "I won't deny that people can make a lot of bad choices when they're drunk. I just prefer having the choice."  
  
"We have the choice as well, we choose to follow the path to Paradise."  
  
"So a man who drinks can't go?"  
  
"I…" Nisa stopped for a moment and thought about the question. Her mind stirred to the teachings and sermons of Rabyi Muammar over all those years. "We are imperfect beings, Commander Raynor. God understands that. A man who drinks alcohol, but yet lives a worthy life in all other things, can still find Paradise."  
  
"Ah, well, that's good to hear. And you can call me Jim, if you like."  
  
"Then you may call me Nisa."  
  
"Well, Nisa, I've been meaning to ask." He set the glass down. "The way Commander Roaratanga and his people tell it, you jumped right after that boarding tube without a second's thought. What made you do that?"  
  
"I…" Nisa considered her thoughts at the time, that instinct to go and save Sadiye. "I trusted in the All-Highest. I left my fate in God's hands and strove to save those people. Compassion is another of the ways to regain Paradise."  
  
"That's all there was to it?"  
  
"Yes and no." She shook her head. "There is a child on the _Psyche_. Her mother was among those taken. I heard her cries for her mother and I knew I had to try. I didn't want her to lose her mother." A familiar ache came to her soul. "I know what it is like."  
  
Pain showed on Raynor's face. He took another drink, as if the whiskey could wash it away. "Yeah, I know that feeling." His voice ached with loss in every word. "Never easy to say goodbye."  
  
"It is not. I can only pray they are still safe."  
  
"Ah. Sounds like a story there."  
  
"There is one." She considered the dreams she'd experienced these past few days. "The ending wasn't as terrible as it might have been, though…"  
  
*****  
  
The caravan set out on horseback from al-Lahir in the early morning hours, so early that the sun had yet to rise. Nisa rode toward the rear, although not in the rear itself, atop a young filly brought with her escorts. Most of those around her were armed, carrying both blades, spears, and a few with the strange "energy guns" of offworlders.  
  
Riding beside her, on an old mare, was a woman named Amira. She was the woman in charge of the Amir's harem, the widow of his late uncle. Her hair, what wisps of it showed under her headscarf, was a light gray, and her face was strongly wrinkled. She spoke with a hard voice. "You should be happy, girl. Your parents will be given the Amir's protection, and he will grant them a brideprice worthy of you. As for you, all of your life will now be free of worry and labor. In the harem you will have all your needs and wants attended to. You will never be hungry."  
  
"My soul will starve," Nisa answered quietly. She was wearing a colorful costume underneath her traveling clothes, for her formal presentation to the Amir.  
  
The woman scowled. "You won't be the first difficult girl we've had to deal with. Your ingratitude won't get you far, Yildiz."  
  
Nisa met her eyes with defiance. A presence drifted across her mind, drawing her attention to the lieutenant of the Amir's guards escorting them. The man's name was Farouk. She knew this from the concept he flashed into her mind. Aloud he said more. "There are other psions in the Amir's service, girl, and they will know if you abuse your mind's strength against the Amir or any other. If you want what's best for your heretic sect, you'll honor your obligations to the Amir and bear him and his family many strong sons. He deserves nothing less for continuing to protect the Yildiz from the faithful."  
  
That drew a scowl to her face. "How can I trust his word when he is already betraying it?" she asked. "His family promised us they would never take a daughter of the Yildiz for his pleasure!"  
  
"And your people promised to serve the Amir's house faithfully, and keep it strong. Your blood will serve to-"  
  
A growing roar distracted the entire group. Overhead a flying craft approached, a blue and red vessel shaped like a bird with its wings curved backward in flight. It flew from behind them at such a low level that the engines' high-pitched roar drowned out all other sounds. The filly under Nisa reared in fear, as did many of the other mounts. Amira's old mare pitched enough that it threw the old woman off. Several other soldiers fell as well, hitting the ground. Dust clouds billowed from the ship's anti-gravity systems bringing it to a hovering stop in front of them.  
  
Nisa seized her chance. She channeled her metaphysical strength, prayed for God's aid, and willed a wave of energy into being. It struck Farouk and his horse hard enough to send the rider flying through the air. She jumped down from the panicked filly and directed her eyes towards the two soldiers in the rear. They were reaching for swords, but they never got them. Nisa went into their minds and triggered their sleep response, as Abdul Rahim taught her to do for self-defense. They fell over from their horses.  
  
The rest of the caravan was still adjusting to the ship's arrival. Nisa used the opportunity to repeat her telepathic command as quickly as she could.  
  
A shrill cry of "Treachery!" came to the air. "Stop her!" Amira shrieked.  
  
The soldiers were turning toward her, but that meant they turned away from the ship. Just below the "neck" of the bird a door opened and a ramp extended. Kasszas stepped out with his walking stick in hand. He reached out with his free hand. Solid force knocked over the remaining soldiers. "Creation's path is laid before you, Nisa Tari."  
  
"So it is." She walked to him. "You have everything?"  
  
"Yes. I found the packs you left for me. They are stowed away."  
  
"Good." She glanced back toward the various soldiers. Those not put to sleep were starting to stir, including Farouk. His mind was already casting out, trying to reach for her defense. "Let's go."  
  
Kasszas led her into the ship. She joined him in the small cockpit area. She held her hands away from everything for fear of touching the wrong thing, noting the quickness with which the Zigonian's talons tapped the colored lights. A slight rumble filled the deckplate below her feet. The ground disappeared from sight.  
  
She watched the ship turn toward the stars. In the distance the sun was just starting to creep over the horizon. They were heading for the upper atmosphere when she realized she would never again see that sun. Al-Lahir, the family homestead, all of the Jeziri Plains… all was lost to her.  
  
But with this bitter realization came the affirmation of the important truth. She'd lost her home… but she still had her freedom. She'd lost her sun, but in its place, she gained the stars.  
  
*****  
  
The fruit drink proved to re-wet Nisa's throat after she finished telling all to Raynor. He considered his own drink while nodding. "Heck of a tale there. You made the right choice, though."  
  
"It was the most important choice of my life. And other lives, now." The insight came to her. "If I had not been here, I worry about what might have happened to the others."  
  
"You certainly made a difference. A lot of good people would be dead now. And that red-eyed son of a bitch might still be breathing."  
  
"I have repaid what Kasszas did for me, then," she said. "My faith is rewarded."  
  
"That it was," Raynor agreed. "Y'know, I've been on my share of fringe worlds, where folks rarely see any kind of ship. I figure that must've been one hell of a sight to you back then, seeing that space vessel coming for you personally."  
  
"Yes." Nisa's mind returned to the sight of Kasszas' ship. "It was like God Himself was coming to my aid with those wings, to bring liberty to my life before I could be imprisoned."  
  
"Nice allusion there. I think I like it." Raynor partially refilled his glass. "You familiar with a toast?"  
  
"I believe I have seen it on Solarian holovids. You raise your glass and touch it to another's?"  
  
"Sometimes, or you just raise a glass." Raynor did just that. "Anyway, a toast. To the Wings of Liberty, wherever you find them."  
  
Nisa rose her own glass, with enough remaining for one last drink. "Yes," she agreed. "To the Wings of Liberty."  
  
Their glasses clinked at contact.  
  
  
  
*****  
  
After a couple days of travel through hyperspace the small flotilla arrived at the Markab yards quietly taken over by the Corps after being hauled through hyperspace to an entirely different place. Like all orbital shipyards, they were sprawling affairs, but rather than spindly minimalist constructs, they were constructed by the Markab and they had a flair for the bulbous.  
  
The _Hyperion_ , as promised, found a large enough dock waiting for her. The moment her engines died down the repair yard machinery went into action, their operators working closely with Swann's crews to get their ship back in operation.  
  
While Swann and Horner saw to the ship's needs, Raynor waited patiently at the airlock for the arrival of one of the Coordinators, the officials who oversaw the "deep state" liberation movement within the Corps. He had expectations that it was one of those he was advised to contact, but any would do given the situation.  
  
The airlock chimed and cycled, and three figures were waiting inside. Commodore Rhee, and two men. One was relatively young, couldn’t be out of his thirties, black hair, shy of two meters tall and built like he killed people for a living. The other one was a bit shorter, older and probably in his sixties at least. He looked like he used to kill people for a living but age had gotten to him. Age and a robotic left arm.  
  
"Welcome aboard, Coordinator," Raynor greeted. He maintained an official tone, the kind he'd used in meetings with the likes of Umojan politicians and officialdom, but the drawl remained. "Glad to have you here."   
  
"Glad to be here as well Commander Raynor. You’ve already met Commodore Rhee, the man on my left is Jonas Fowler. We are now quorate." There was warmth and a bit of mirth in Colin's voice. His accent was unique, one of many unfamiliar to Humanity from the Koprulu worlds. "On behalf of my brothers and sisters, thank you. If you hadn't shown up when you did, the people on the _Psyche_ would be dead or worse."  
  
"Was happy to be of help. I've heard of these Aristo types, evil sons of bitches, every one of them." Raynor gestured toward the ship interior. "I've got something to show you, it's why I came out to find you people."  
  
Raynor's mind was trained enough that he didn't let his thoughts leak out, nothing that could tell Colin what was coming without a scan. "Let me see."  
  
With Raynor in the lead, the group walked through the utilitarian corridors of the battlecruiser. The ship was built like an Earthforce ship… mostly. They passed one open area that was exquisitely furnished, with ornate wolf's head markings or sculptures on the lining and plush red carpeting. "You don't strike me as the type to furnish ships like that," Colin said once they were past.  
  
"Not mine. That's Mengsk's doing," he answered. "The _Hyperion_ used to be his flagship, before I took her from him after Tarsonis."  
  
Raynor's mental shields cracked slightly. Memories seeped through, painful memories, and Colin couldn't help but see them. The ruined cities, their slaughtered residents, chitinous creatures of fang and claw in numbers overwhelming…  
  
...and a woman in a white tactical suit, red-haired with light green eyes, holding a line against them. Her call for pickup, with no reply, until the Zerg — that was the name of those terrible aliens — overwhelmed her. A brief flash of memory showed her hair turned chitinous, her eyes glowing with unfathomable psi power, and bony wings protruding from a body of scale and chiton…  
  
" _I will rule this sector or see it burnt to ashes around me!_ " declared a voice with its own drawl, not unlike the accent of the long-departed, utterly unlamented Lee Crawford. Even without asking, Colin knew it was the voice of Arcturus Mengsk.  
  
Raynor's discipline recovered enough to push the memories away. He noted the loss of color on Colin's face. "Sorry about that. A part of me never left Tarsonis, I reckon."  
  
“It’s alright, Commander, no need to apologize. Traumatic events like that leave marks, I’d be concerned if part of you hadn’t been left behind there.”  
  
The remark won a nod of acknowledgement. They continued on their way through the _Hyperion_. They went through another section before Raynor turned to his left. "Here we are." Raynor led them through a sliding double door. They emerged to the upper catwalk of one of the _Hyperion_ 's interior cargo bays. Crates and stacks of dry goods supplies were scattered everywhere, as one would expect.  
  
Among those supplies were over thirty people, over half children and teenagers, wearing jumpsuits or worn clothes. They had sleeping bags and hammocks slung up between crates and an electric cooking stove.  
  
Colin felt them immediately. The children and teens were telepaths, every one of them, as were five of the thirteen adults. He turned his head toward Raynor.  
  
"Most of 'em come from the fringe worlds of the Dominion," Raynor explained. "I got to them before the Ghost Program could. The rest are from Kel-Morian worlds. The Combine's not much better than the Dominion, or the Confederacy before them. They use 'em to spy on the labor, break up strikes and the like, or to take advantage in trade negotiations." Sensing Colin's interest, he continued. "Used to be the fringe worlds were the best hope, but Mengsk's been expanding the wranglers and making it harder to hide 'em. As for where else they can go, the Umojans are alright, but they'd risk war with Mengsk if they sheltered people. The Kel-Morians would go after them too. So I've been putting together something, our 'Jayhawker' friend called it an 'Underground Railroad', to get people out of Koprulu and into the Multiverse. That way Mengsk can't do anything about it. I just need places for these folks to go."  
  
Colin nodded, the other two looked at him and also nodded. "Motion carried. You've found one. We’ll take any telepath, human or no, who flees oppression."  
  
"Glad to hear it. Folks should be free, and Mengsk'll never stand for it."  
  
"We have our own freedom to see to, but when that's done, and if you're still fighting Mengsk… we'll be glad to help."  
  
Fowler spoke up in a gravelly British accent. “Combine too if you go after them, not only because they oppress telepaths, but also their workers.”  
  
"If we ever take Mengsk down, I'll look to them next. Swann and his people deserve justice for Meinhoff."  
  
"Looking forward to it." Colin replied with an almost predatory grin. Like he would take particular relish in making such people regret their life choices.  
  
Raynor extended his hand, and in turn, the three telepaths shook it with their gloved hands.  
  
  
****  
  
With both ships now docked to the yards, the passengers stolen from the _Psyche_ were on their way back to the ship. Nisa joined them, refreshed by the decent meals and rest she'd enjoyed aboard _Hyperion_. The ship's facilities meant her clothes were clean as well, and the auto-tailors aboard even mended her headscarf.  
  
All of this was possible through the patience and kindness of the _Hyperion_ crew. Most were rough people, but the kind of roughness that came from a hard life, with gentle souls shining beneath the exterior. They were, whatever their flaws, worthy beings, fighting against a tyrant as cruel as the Amir, and far more murderous.  
  
A couple of the Corps personnel from the yard turned their journey into an impromptu field trip for the rescued children, answering questions (if not always giving full answers) as they came from the eager ones.  
  
On their way to the _Psyche_ , the three Coordinators almost passed them by, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, while out-pacing the field trip. But Colin stopped.  
  
“Nisa Tari?” he asked. When she instinctively paused, he waved the other two off, he’d meet them at the airlock; and then he approached.   
  
Nisa stopped and looked toward Colin. She nodded her covered head once. "I am, yes," she answered. "Is all well?"  
  
“More than well. I would like to thank you personally, in point of fact. The after-action report was… interesting reading. You basically took a Leap of Faith to rescue our kin, and I don’t see that very often. Thank you. Pretty sure you’ll be a fine teacher for Husn, if you had any anxiety on that score.”  
  
"I hope to be," she answered. Taking in his appearance, and his words, she sensed the truth. "You are Doctor Meier? I was told I might see you, but I did not expect to while on my way to Tau Atrea."  
  
He chuckled a bit. “Yes. A pleasure to meet you in person, though I wish the circumstances were better. But we needed a quorum for something, and my husband Gene is off doing Redacted Things…”  
  
"I understand. I was told that certain things about your people were secrets that had to be kept. I will do so to the best of my ability." Nisa's lips curled into a gentle smile. "I can only thank the All-Highest for giving me the chance to be of such aid to your people. I never imagined you faced such a terrible foe. My universe has its own horrors, but nothing quite like those red-eyed servants of the Abyss."  
  
Colin valiantly suppressed laughter, given the Shadows. “There are a great many such beings in the Multiverse, unfortunately. But you’re right, a few months ago I didn’t imagine I’d be dealing with them either. Just trying to liberate my people by toppling a fascist government. Now I have to send a transport ship to Tau Atrea with a dreadnought for escort, just in case vaguely psychic imperial monarchist space-sadists try to ambush it.”  
  
"We are due to depart soon, I hear?"  
  
“Yeah, we just got the notification that our techs found the source of the computer compromise, so you should be ready to go in a few hours.”  
  
"I look forward to seeing Tau Atrea." She walked alongside Colin back toward the group and the approaching airlock to the refurbished cruiser.  
  
By the time they arrived the airlock terminal was the scene of a reunion. Children and adults came from the docked ship to meet family members seized in the attack. Nisa's mind and soul felt the joy keenly, the warmth and sheer happiness washing over her until tears formed in her eyes.  
  
<This makes everything worth it.> Colin remarked to her privately. He was taking that joy in, storing it away for when he needed a good memory later.  
  
A small figure sprang from the airlock. Halime rushed forward into Şadiye's waiting arms. Tears flowed freely from her eyes and she clung to her mother, as if she would never ever let go again. The two embraced tightly for a few moments before their eyes gradually turned toward Nisa. Glyphs of joy and deep, soul-felt thanks touched her mind. The tears flowing from her eyes increased.  
  
 _He is right_ , she thought. _This does make it all worth it. Thank you, All-Highest, for the chance to experience it._  
  
  
*****  
  
Fifteen minutes later, aboard the _Psyche,_ the Coordinators were meeting with her command crew.  
  
“Alright, what did those red-eyed bastards do to <my> our ship?” Commodore Rhee asked, just after everyone made introduction.   
  
“This.” Lieutenant Leonti Yakovlev pulled a transparent box out from under the conference table, showing a memory metal blob that writhed inside the containment field. “As far as I can tell, fully functioning Artificial General Intelligence, with more advanced computer penetration toolkit than human-form _Cylons_.”   
  
“The only thing that saved us at all was quick thinking, compartmentalization, and outside assistance.” Captain Dragic elaborated. “We’ve inferred that a similar or identical method was used on the _Eiberhorn_ , which as a civilian ship didn’t have our safeguards. They didn’t even get out a distress call.”  
  
“Okay, but how the hell did they get it on the ship?” From Colin, who suspected the answer was station-side, but wanted to hear it.   
  
“Station-side penetration.” Markus replied. “Mr. Wallace _prevailed_ upon station security to let him and his people comb through the camera feeds. Alliance security has holes you can drive a truck through, and there was one person who showed up in the vicinity of those holes repeatedly. I suspect the same thing can be said of the _Eiberhorn_ when it last docked. It last took on passengers at _Babylon-5_. _That_ station might as well be Cold War era Berlin for how many spies and operatives there are. Chief Allen is very diligent and tries to secure the place...”  
  
“But it’s _Babylon-5_. It was never actually finished and physical security might as well not exist, I know. You can travel the length of the station between the hulls.” Colin agreed. “Okay, send that thing back to Sigma, we need to learn as much about it and its ilk as possible. Once Gene gets back… we need to actually do something about the Aristos. And by ‘do something’ I mean wipe them out.”  
  
“Colin…” Rhee interjected “I don’t think we can. Our fleet has grown considerably, but not that big. They’re a galactic power, and technologically superior.”  
  
“I don’t mean invade their space and then put them through the blender of industrial scale Genocide, Sueng. There aren’t that many Aristos, we can do something more targeted, like Phage Therapy. Purge the infection, and maybe the whole of Eubian society can heal. We can’t have them jumping in a fleet to help EarthGov when the revolution comes, and then take payment in the form of our population. Every last member of the Aristo class is guilty of torture, rape, murder, enslavement. On an industrial scale they commit crimes against humanity. Every last one deserves death and I mean to give it to them.”  
  
“Oh, don’t mistake me Colin, in principle I agree, I just don’t see how we can do it. And you know me, it isn’t a failure of ambition…” At that, there was a laugh around the table. Certainly not a failure of ambition.  
  
“Point of information: We have an alliance with the Dilgar. Their ability to integrate medicine and biotechnology has no rival, as far as I can tell.” Fowler left unspoken was that the Dur clan still existed.   
  
“Put out feelers?” Colin asked him.  
  
“Of course.” Fowler replied, nodding.   
  
“Um…” Captain Dragic was a bit taken aback by that conversation. “Should we have been here for that?”  
  
“What does the term ‘need to know’ tell you?” Rhee asked her.  
  
“That I have need to know because whatever you end up doing, my ship is being drafted for it?” She ventured a bit tentatively.  
  
“Precisely!” The Commodore grinned when Dragic grimaced. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to enlist you for heavy combat, but I suspect we’ll need troop transports.”  
  
Colin glanced over at Markus, who was quietly stewing. He could feel the irritation coming off the man in waves. Frustrated at something, but he kept the details locked away. “Okay, I think we’re adjourned unless anyone has other business?” No one said anything. “Alright, then we are actually adjourned. Markus, can you stay for a minute before you take the tram to the _Jörmundgandr_?”  
  
“Sure.” Markus replied, gruffly but a bit mortified that he was about to get dressed down for something by the equivalent of Rosa Luxemburg. Everyone filed out, leaving the two men staring at each other across the conference table.   
  
“What’s bothering you Markus? Don’t worry, I’m not going to denounce you in Pravda or send you to a gulag.” Colin joked disarmingly.   
  
“Why are you sending them back, Colin? And don’t give me that bullshit about how people deserve to be free that you use to curry favor with the god damned mundane liberals.” Markus was obviously referring to those from the _Eiberhorn_ who still refused to join the Corps. Colin sighed.  
  
“Because it is at least partially true.” He felt the angry retort coming, and held up his hand in a placating gesture. “But not entirely. Look, I’ve never been comfortable with coercion anyway. But there are practical reasons too. Before multi-universal contact, we could have won this on our own. Now we can’t. We _need_ help. Or at least, we need to deny EarthGov external assistance.”  
  
“And you trust the Allied Systems to provide that?” Markus asked incredulously. “They’re mundanes Colin, _Liberal_ mundanes at that. Do I need to give you of all people a history lesson? You’ll give concessions and they’ll want more and more, and we’ll find ourselves being imperialized like Vietnam did. We should just be drafting the blips into the fleet and have done. Hell you’ve done that before.”  
  
“To avoid sending them to camps, absolutely!” Was Colin’s retort “But Markus, the blips who are so far gone that even after we rescue them from being torture-raped to death they still won’t join us? They’re a lumpenproletariat security risk and you know it. So if I can have them outside the tent unable to even piss in, I’ll do it. And if it secures us help in dealing with the fascist regime that holds our chains, yeah, I’ll do it.”  
  
Markus’ reply wasn’t in words, it was a feeling. The feeling that his siblings were betraying and abandoning their own family to suffer whatever fate had in store for them.  
  
“I know. It sucks. But Markus, if your family has hit hard times, and the always-in-trouble teenager wants to run away and join the circus or whatever instead of getting a job to help pay rent, do you let him go, or keep him chained in the basement?”  
  
“I…” Markus paused. “I see your point.” It was one less mouth to feed, and he wouldn’t do anyone else any good locked in the basement.  
  
“Exactly. And I’m certainly not blind to the risk in trusting the Allied Systems. We are talking about people who have both replicators, and private companies, afterall. But there are people in it worthy of trust, and they’re the best shot we have. So we either take the chance, or we might as well commit ritual suicide right now because it will be less painful than what EarthGov does to us. Would you like to borrow my tantō?”  
  
Markus managed a dark chuckle at that one. “No…”


	6. Chapter 6

  
  
**Epilogue**  
  
  
Oscar was not waiting patiently at the opening. With a couple of his associates, and Jaman, he paced about at the terminal that the Corps shuttle was debarking at. A short, respectable distance away, Erika, Julian, and Alistair waited as well.  
  
When the terminal door opened Oscar was relieved to see the figure at the head of it. Luisa Calderon was a fairly tall woman, not very pretty, but solidly built and with a mole on her cheek. He gently touched her mind with his own and felt relief containing a host of worse emotions. <You're all safe>, he p'cast.  
  
<Most. Nhung, Tomoe, Gita, and Rodislav are dead.> Her answer had all the grief he'd expect. <Some of the others decided to stay with the Corps after what happened.>  
  
<Oh?>  
  
She glyphed him the fate of the _Eiberhorn_. He swallowed at the horror of it all: the mundane passengers and crews intentionally killed after the ship was raided, since they "weren't worth" the trouble. The processing onto the _EIberhorn_. The Aristo lord covering some of them, including Luisa, with those pain-giver nanobots, and the torture sessions that he indulged in before their rescue.  
  
Even before he finished processing the glyph Oscar embraced Luisa, who sobbed quietly in his arms. They let go just before Markus stepped through the airlock door.   
  
“Mr. Mendoza.” his voice wasn’t cold exactly, rather strictly professional. Which was warmer than it was from him usually. He was also carrying a data crystal. “This crystal contains everything we were able to glean about the loss of the _Eiberhorn_ , and the near-loss of the _Psyche_. They’re infiltrating agents who slip technologically advanced drones into the umbilical connections between ships and the docking bays, that compromise ship systems. You’ll want to tighten up security at dock. Also, consider how they target ships. This installation is fixed and a known target. Yours are not. You have a leak. If you need assistance plugging it with extreme prejudice, I have instructions to offer assistance. But don’t ever accuse us of this shit again.”  
  
Oscar accepted the crystal quietly. "We'll find the leak and plug it. And we'll deal with that security hole." He put the crystal away. "I'm sorry for the accusation. I let old wounds cloud my judgement." He had to concentrate to push away thoughts of his mother. "Miss Tari was right about how much I resent the past. I can't promise I'll let it all go, but I'll avoid making that kind of charge again. Speaking of Miss Tari, is she okay?"  
  
“She is…” Markus needed to think of the proper term “Magnificent. She’s fine, and I never want to piss her off.” Markus sighed. “Look, I had a very intense conversation with someone smarter and wiser than me. We don’t have to be friends, Mr. Mendoza, we’re too different for that. But we don’t have to be enemies, and we share a few of those.”  
  
Oscar didn't hide his relief at learning Nisa was okay before replying to Markus. "You're right about the enemies. These Aristos have to be stopped, and if the Corps ever gets a shot at them, we'll help however we can." Neither man was fooled: the assistance offered wouldn't be significant. But as with several other things, it was the thought that counted.  
  
“We’ll keep the Free Colony apprised.” The second half of the message, he relayed telepathically <And not just them. There are others. I don’t fully trust the Allied Systems, I make no secret of that. But there are other threats. Be careful out there.> It came off like a big brother warning about a shortcut through a bad part of town.   
  
In other situations Oscar might've defended the Allied Systems, whatever he sometimes felt about them — and he was well aware of the anti-telepath sentiment in some quarters of their leadership — but given the situation, he let the warning stand. He wasn't sure what Markus was talking about, since he didn't project the sheer hate the Corps reserved for the Aristos. After a few seconds of consideration he p'cast a reply of <We'll keep our eyes out.>  
  
<Good.>  
  
Oscar nodded a final time in his direction before turning to the people brought back from the _Eiberhorn_. <Okay everyone>, he p'cast openly. <Let's get you to quarters. We'll have a ship taking you out of E5B1 soon. Follow me.> He gave a final, appreciating glance toward Markus before leading them away.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
The shuttle from the _Psyche_ made a gentle landing on the tarmac. The hatch slid open. From within the passengers stepped out. Nisa stood among them, getting her first personal sight of Tau Atrea. Her personal bags were at hand, the benefit of traveling light.  
  
It was certainly a frontier colony, a growing one. A large factory of some sort was in the near distance, just inside of the wall. Even beyond the settlement's wall structures were visible, many only partially completed, while inside the wall were many more buildings. Some looked like small prefab structures, others larger and more permanent housing.  
  
Nearby a second shuttle disembarked its passengers as well. Most were children from the _Psyche_. Awaiting them were a contingent of children of the colony, the eldest being a girl of about eleven or twelve, with an adult standing with them smiling. The two groups came together into a series of hugs and a steady exchange of telepathic greetings and childish glyphs of excitement and glee. Those who were taken during the attack were quickly identified and treated to an outpouring of warm sympathy from the children of Tau Atrea.  
  
The older girl's eyes traveled over to Nisa, as if sensing her watching. Only as they made eye contact did Nisa feel a slender mental thread. She turned and looked up to see a black bird of some kind perched on a nearby landing beacon, staring at her intently. She turned back to the girl in time to see her nudge the adult among the children. The woman exchanged words with the caretaker coming from the _Psyche_ , one of those Nisa saved in the common room, before guiding another, younger girl out of the crowd. The older girl with the dark hair joined them.  
  
It wasn't hard for Nisa to recognize the younger child: her proposed student, Husn Mira.  
  
<Would you like to say hello first, or should I make introductions?> The older girl asked Husn, completely in the clear.   
  
<You can go ahead. I don’t want to… take your duty from you.> Husn replied with a silly facial expression. The older girl stuck her tongue out but it wasn’t in the mean way.  
  
Nisa approached them with relaxed steps. She nodded politely to the adult and the two children. "I am Nisa Tari from Toutaine." Her tone remained gentle and reserved, that of a guest addressing her hosts.  
  
“ I’ve been briefed. I’m Zara Tam” < _Meier-Hendriks_ > she appended telepathically to the end. “I suppose you could call me the Unofficial Children’s Commissar.” That last part was… mostly kidding. But Zara was only looking up at Nisa because she was short, not like a normal child typically addresses an adult “And this is your prospective pupil, Husn Mira.”  
  
“Hello!” The younger girl waved cheerfully, but didn’t disguise the fact that she was both a bit apprehensive, and hopeful. She didn’t know what to expect, and was using this exchange to get a handle on what kind of person Nisa was.   
  
"Hello." Nisa smiled at them all.  
  
That was when the adult noticed what was going on, and hustled over. She was in early middle age, addressed Zara with an easy familiarity. “For God’s sake, Zara. She just got here, there will be plenty of time to interrogate her personality. After she’s had a chance to rest. The journey has been much longer than anticipated.” She gave Nisa an apologetic look when Zara deferred to her with a ‘by all means’ gesture. “Sorry about that. Zara sometimes goes a bit overboard.”  
  
"I sense it is a natural enthusiasm, and she means well." Nisa lowered her bags to the ground. "It is a pleasure to meet you all. I am thankful the All-Highest brought us together, whatever comes." Her eyes briefly focused on Husn, although without any particular intensity. "You are their teacher, I sense?"  
  
“I was. Now that our population is bigger it would be more accurate to say I’m their live-in assistant principal. I’m Elizabeth Saunders.”  
  
"God be with you, Elizabeth Saunders." Nisa searched her memory for that title before nodding. "I am unfamiliar with that title. I take it to mean you no longer teach, but organize the teachers?"  
  
“Not exactly the same thing… There is some of that, but I’m specifically responsible for overseeing the psychological well-being of my charges in collaboration with their teachers.”  
  
"You see to the health of their minds. I understand." Nisa nodded. "I am aware of 'psychology' from Solaris. Psion psychologists do well there. I recall once seeing a broadcast of one popular to the Solarian residents as entertainment on the vids, although I found the value of his work questionable as therapy."  
  
“Ah, yes. There are similar mundanes on Earth… but they have conflicts of interest and compromise patient care.” Elizabeth replied. And Zara interjected with something of her own.  
  
“She means that capitalism corrupts them, of course. Their interest becomes making money rather than helping people.”  
  
The look that Elizabeth gave Zara told Nisa everything she needed to know, above her own senses. She let the moment pass and returned her attention to Husn. She connected her mind to the child, glyphing her purpose. How Kasszas approached her, brought her into contact with Lucilla Lucero and Robert Dale, and their proposal she come to offer Husn training.  
  
<They’re good people.> Husn replied and then elaborated.<It might be a good idea to talk privately. This is… new, and a big responsibility.>  
  
<It is.>  
  
The contact between their minds expanded. It wasn't merely a telepathic connection any longer, but something deeper, mind and soul meeting together in a sympathetic harmony. Nisa felt Husn's spiritual devotion, her certainty in the existence of God much like Nisa's own, and a determination to use her gifts with all the care and devotion due to a divine blessing. She approved of it warmly. At the same time, she felt that same warmth reflected back.  
  
Husn sensed the core of her own being, and many of the experiences that contributed to it, and knew that Nisa was capable of understanding what existence and responsibility meant for her. As the seconds passed she felt the growing conviction within her, the belief that no less than God had sent this woman to teach her to use this gift, ensuring she would be there to aid the _Psyche_ crew as well (and indeed, in keeping with the ways God often acted).  
  
“I think… I think Allah sent you to be my teacher.”  
  
Nisa nodded. "Among other things. The All-Highest guides us all. I have faith we will fulfill His intentions." The thought came to her. Was everything so far, not just her voyage here, but everything before that… wasn't it all the guiding hand of the Creator of the Three Names, bringing her to this place to fulfill this child's destiny? _Either way, I will do what I must to honor Husn, and guide her._ "I am told a teacher is taught by students as much as the student is taught by the teacher. I have no doubt we will teach each other many things, Husn."  
  
“I think so too.” Husn nodded.   
  
“Are all of you this sage-like? Does that come with the membership card or something?” Zara asked perfectly genuinely. “Anyway, we’ve set up a meditation space in part of the library, and we should probably show you around so you don’t get lost.”  
  
"I would like to see the rest of your settlement here. It's larger than I thought it would be," Nisa said. As to the question of a membership card, she glyphed to Zara the meditation rooms and other facilities in the Enclave on Solaris, including some of the very un-sagelike arguments that could break out among the metaphysically-gifted.  
  
“That’ll do it…” Zara replied. “Might like our library.”  
  
“One of the first things we built after the attack, actually.” Elizabeth noted. “But the shelter is in the center and we should probably start there.”  
  
Nisa picked her bags up once more and followed Elizabeth and the children toward the heart of the settlement. Passing by the new arrivals, her senses easily picked up their determination, their relief, and most importantly, their hope. It gave her a warm feeling, and with it, hopes of her own. Hopes for the future for herself and her parents, the parents she'd not seen in years.  
  
Sadiq and Kimiya Tari were a universe away now, but more than anyone else, they'd shaped her. Trained her in her divine gift, just as she was to train Husn, and showed her how life should be lived. They would be proud of her.  
  
No. They were. She could feel that now, as if that gap were suddenly nothing. A resonance in her being, her very soul, brought to her the certainty of their feelings. The melancholy of her being beyond their reach now, an old pain balmed by time, struck her first, and she responded with her own melancholy at the things she wouldn't get to show her parents. All of the wonders out here in this undiscovered frontier…  
  
That brought happiness, and it was not just her own. _You are free, our little dancer_. _Free to grow. God be praised._ The words weren't her own either, and she _knew_ that she felt her parents at that moment. Even as it faded, she knew it was them.  
  
 _Whatever else comes, I have faith I will meet it. My freedom came with a purpose, and I will fulfill it, All-Highest_. Nisa smiled. _I will make the most of the life your wings of liberty gave to me._  
  
And so the dreamer gave one look toward the stars she'd won before continuing on, ready for whatever else came in her journey.


End file.
